"Rattlesnake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beside the boa, some not so large, but more poisonous. The boa is not poisonous. He relies on his huge strength to kill his enemies; but other snakes, such as vipers and rattlesnakes, are. Even when the head of a viper has been cut off it still remains poisonous, and may cause death. The rattlesnake is so called because it makes a funny rattle with its tail before it strikes. It is about five feet long sometimes, and the sound of its rattle sends terror into the heart of anyone who is near, as ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... time after his return from the voyage of the "Rattlesnake," Huxley succeeded in tracing his good Warwickshire friends again. A letter of May 11, 1852, from one of them, Miss K. Jaggard, tells how they had lost sight of the Huxleys after their departure from Coventry; how they were themselves ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... men, they start out to hunt. All time they bring back to old chief strong medicine, like rattlesnake poison, like ropes of yucca fiber, like fifty coyotes fastened together. But that old chief he laugh and shake ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... noted," began the larger creature, "I am an A-B-Sea Serpent. I am employed in the nursery of the Mer children to teach them their letters. My friend, here, is a Rattlesnake, and it is his business to amuse the Mer babies while the Mermaids are mer-marketing. Once a year, we take a vacation, and proceeding from the sea depths up a strange river, we came out upon this shore. Perhaps you, Sir, will be able to tell us ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... interesting guides will regale the traveller with most acceptable stories about the Prairie-dog, Rattlesnake, and the Burrowing Owl, all living in the same den on a basis of brotherly love and Christian charity; having effected, it would seem, a limited partnership and a most satisfactory division of labour: the Prairie-dog is to dig the ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... is so absolutely graceful as a rattlesnake, and none more gentle in intention. It is only against imposition that he protests. Our forefathers had learned a not unworthy lesson from their contact with nature in the New World when they put upon the first flag of the colonies a rattlesnake, with the Latin legend, Nemo me impune lacessit—"No ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... spared you, because you are not the principal. But tell him from me, that if a word is breathed against Mrs. Rivington, I swear that I'll search for him till I find him, and when I find him I'll kill him with as little compunction as I would a rattlesnake." Peter turned and going to his dressing-room, washed away the ink ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... The road now, but for the shifting of the sands, would have been marked by the bodies of dead cattle, in death scarcely more bone and parchment than for days they had been while alive. The horned toad, the cactus, the rattlesnake long since had replaced the prairie dogs of the grassy floor of the eastern Plains. A scourge of great black crickets appeared, crackling loathsomely under the wheels. Sagebrush and sand took the place ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... thickly-set spines. The blades of the yuccas are dimmed by dust, and resemble clusters of half-rusty bayonets; and the low scrubby copses of acacia scarce offer a shade to the dusky agama and the ground rattlesnake. Here and there a solitary palmetto, with branchless stem and tufted crown, gives an African aspect to the scene. The eye soon tires of a landscape where every object appears angular and thorny; and upon this plain, not only are the trees of that character, but the plants,—even the very ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... flung a hastily-snatched rock at a rattlesnake that had begun its dry, chirring defiance on top of what once had been ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... sorcery plays in the healing of disease I do not know. Nor did I learn what the Indians think of the origin and effects of dreams. Me-le told me that he knows of a plant the leaves of which, eaten, will cure the bite of a rattlesnake, and that he knows also of a plant which is an antidote to the noxious effects of the poison ivy ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... again; then dismissed the question with a wave of his hand, and pulled out a great gold watch with cornelian seals. "Carter swears that Dr. Contesse hath a specific that is as sovereign for the gout as is St. Andrew's cross for a rattlesnake bite. I've had twinges lately, and the doctor lives hard by. Evelyn, will you rest here while I go petition AEsculapius? Haward, when I have the recipe I will return, and impart it to you against the time when you need ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... by day, and perhaps stalking through the streets of still villages by night, had worked their way along down from the ragged mountain-spurs of higher latitudes. The one feature of The Mountain that shed the brownest horror on its woods was the existence of the terrible region known as Rattlesnake Ledge, and still tenanted by those damnable reptiles, which distil a fiercer venom under our cold northern sky than the cobra himself in the land ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... a figure on horse-back appeared at the head of the arroyo. It was Red Bill himself. On his ankle was a bandage, but his amazing vitality had left no other traces of the bite of the rattlesnake. ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... while the latter was making a slight detour about a sage-brush. She turned partly around to laugh at Polly, when her burro made a sudden lunge away from the trail, and at the same time, a diamond- backed rattlesnake struck out from its coil, reaching at least two- thirds the full ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... evacuation of Fort Mifflin, after the British had passed the chevaux-de-frise on the Delaware, was left with fifteen men to destroy the works, which he did, and brought off his men successfully. He had, before that, been commander of the Rattlesnake sloop of war, and had much annoyed the British trade; Being bred a seaman, he ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... they had buried themselves, head and ears, in the marshes on the other side, where they all miserably perished to a man; and their bones being collected and decently covered by the Tammany Society of that day, formed that singular mound called Rattlesnake Hill, which rises out of the center of the salt marshes a little to the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... blackness. The house was still. All was well. With the feeling of a life-prisoner emerging from the Bastille, he began to crawl stiffly forward; and it was just then that the first of the disturbing events occurred which were to make this night memorable to him. Something like a rattlesnake suddenly went off with a whirr, and his head, jerking up, collided with the piano. It was only the cuckoo-clock, which now, having cleared its throat as was its custom before striking, proceeded to cuck eleven times in rapid succession before subsiding with another rattle; but ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... afternoon came the joyful shout of "Land-ho!" which quickly filled the deck of the "Oceanus" with a troop of smiling faces. All gloom now gave way to sanguine expectation. We could plainly distinguish the light-ship, bearing the suggestive name, "Rattlesnake Shoals," and knew we were at last off Charleston harbor. A pilot was presently taken on board, who informed the captain that we could not go over the bar till sunset. Some one asked him, "Are the people over there in Charleston loyal now, pilot?" He shook his head gravely, ...
— The Flag Replaced on Sumter - A Personal Narrative • William A. Spicer
... use Tobacco without becoming Sick.—Experiments upon animals have shown that the body can learn to use a poison and not become sick from it. The poison of a rattlesnake is deadly to most animals; but if a tiny bit of the poison is put under the skin of the rabbit one day and then on each succeeding day a little larger dose of the poison is given the rabbit for a long time, the animal will become so accustomed to the poison that ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... let him alone, men," said Jack Chase. "Only keep off the tail of a rattlesnake, and ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... scatter their silver coin with liberal hands for the things that their hearts desire. The bulk of this semiprecious metal goes to Navarro & Platt. Their huge brick building covers enough ground to graze a dozen head of sheep. You can buy of them a rattlesnake-skin necktie, an automobile or an eighty-five dollar, latest style, ladies' tan coat in twenty different shades. Navarro & Platt first introduced pennies west of the Colorado River. They had been ranchmen with business heads, ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... don't mean to say anythin'—not from now on. But while we're on the subject and to avoid any future misunderstandin' I might just as well tell you right now that I can't see nothin' good in a sheepman—nothin'! I'm like my cat Tom when he sees a rattlesnake, my hair bushes up clean over my ears and I see hell, ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... people whom he cursed were in Elysium compared to the place where he tortured himself. There are desert birds that silently surround a rattlesnake, as he sleeps, with little bundles of cactus-heads and their million needles, so that, when the reptile wakes, it cannot escape through the palisade of bristling weapons by which it is surrounded; and in ghoulish ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... has he not played upon us! The first thing his art places in our hands is a magnifying glass: we look through it, and we no longer trust our own eyes—Everything grows bigger, even Wagner grows bigger.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} What a clever rattlesnake. Throughout his life he rattled "resignation," "loyalty," and "purity" about our ears, and he retired from the corrupt world with a song of praise to chastity!—And ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... again. Him sometime do that. But no. Mister snake he go sleep in tent which is reserve for his superior. I say nothing, for I do not wish to alarm the young ladies. That is why I hold the dog Mumble so tight, for he small eye see snake too, an' fool dog wish to go fight him. Rattlesnake soon eat Mumble up—eh? But never mind; there is no worry. I am Wampus, an' I am here. You go to bed now, an' ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... going to the lake I met a little rattlesnake; I fed him with some jelly-cake, Which ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... ornamental capitals, some fragments of which remained; and the one massive hinge, hanging by a slender rust-eaten nail, had been wrought into a fantastic shape. As they drove through the gateway, a green lizard scampered down from the top of one of the posts, where he had been sunning himself, and a rattlesnake lying in the path lazily uncoiled his motley brown length, and sounding his rattle, wriggled slowly off into the rank grass and weeds that ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... hunting, and drew upon his natural gaiety and cheerfulness, without knowing anything of the Court, or of what was passing! Compare this portrait with his real character, and we shall feel with terror what a rattlesnake was introduced into the ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Betty," exclaimed the boy, in disgust. "You'll be saying next that she can make rattlesnake's teeth sprout out ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... point. The battle lasted three hours, the Indians being finally driven off with the loss of sixty men. It was reported in San Jose that the Indians had surprised a company of seventy-two men, on Rattlesnake Creek, and murdered them all. In consequence of these occurrences, the Governor dispatched Col. Johnson to the scene of disturbance, ordered out 200 men, and applied to Gen. Smith for the assistance of the United ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... ses the capt'in, 'I relies on you, Joe.'—'E always did—and would you believe it, I upped an' 'ooked that there great rattlesnake out of the ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... the Culpepper Minute-men, who wore green hunting shirts with "Liberty or Death" on the bosom in white letters, and who carried a banner which displayed a coiled rattlesnake with the motto, "Don't tread on me." He took a part in the battle of Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth; he shared the hardships of Valley Forge; in fact saw almost continuous service from the time he enlisted at ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... sovereign of its native wood, Dashes damnation upon bad and good; The health of all the upas trees impairs By exhalations deadlier than theirs; Poisons the rattlesnake and warts the toad— The creeks go rotten and the rocks corrode! She shakes o'er breathless hill and shrinking dale The horrid aspergillus of her tail! From every saturated hair, till dry, The spargent fragrances divergent fly, Deafen the ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... which, as he well knows, are to be given to the public in next week's illustrated paper. The feathered end of his shaft titillates harmlessly enough, but too often the arrowhead is crusted with a poison worse than the Indian gets by mingling the wolf's gall with the rattlesnake's venom. No man is safe whose unguarded threshold the mischief-making questioner has crossed. The more unsuspecting, the more frank, the more courageous, the more social is the subject of his vivisection, the more easily does he get at his vital secrets, if he has any to be extracted. No man is ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... mountaineers and surveyors who took everything for granted, and spared each other the most wearisome bore of English and Scotch life, the stories of the big game they killed. A bear was an occasional amusement; a wapiti was a constant necessity; but the only wild animal dangerous to man was a rattlesnake or a skunk. One shot for amusement, but one had other matters ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... of the house, was to go "down town" to his business; he put his little head out of the door of the kennel, and was just about to creep out, when right in front of him in the path he saw a snake. He knew in a moment just what sort of a snake it was, and how dangerous it was; he knew it was a rattlesnake, and that if it bit Ada or him, they would probably die. For Marland had spent two summers on his papa's big ranch in Kansas, and he had been told over and over again, if he ever saw a snake to run away ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... the season progressed, coastwise operations in this quarter became increasingly hazardous for both parties. On October 22, Hull wrote that neither the "Enterprise" nor the "Rattlesnake" could cruise much longer. The enemy still maintained his grip, in virtue of greater size and numbers. Ten days later comes the report of a convoy, with one of the brigs, driven into port by a ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... work of it, General," he said, in his bluff, abrupt fashion. "It will come rattling about their heads, and they must take to the walls behind, and these will soon give way before a steady cannonade. Or if we take the cannon up to yonder heights of Rattlesnake Hill, we can fling our round shot within their breastwork from end to end, and drive the men back like rabbits to their burrow; or we can plant a battery at the narrow mouth of Lake Champlain, and cut off their supplies. With ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... 1776, occurred an event of importance in the hoisting of the flag with the thirteen stripes. Previously the colonies had used different devices, in the South a rattlesnake flag with the motto, "Don't tread on me," and for the Connecticut troops the colony arms and the motto Qui transtulit sustinet, "which we construe thus: 'God, who transplanted us hither, will support us.'"[142] Massachusetts ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... I want to follow up Cleopatra's fashion, and commit suicide, I am goin' to hire a rattlesnake, and take my poison as she did, on ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... I said, for an excuse. "A rattlesnake. It struck at me and missed. It almost struck me. I'll be all ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... of an unobscured sun, where water holes are accorded locations on the maps, and where, under the fluttering shade of fluted palm boughs, life becomes a siesta dream. A land great in its past and lean in its present. A land where the rattlesnake and the sidewinder, the tarantula and the scorpion multiply, and where sickness is unknown and fivescore years no uncommon span of life. A land of strange contradictions! A peninsula which to the Spanish conquistadores was an island glistening in the azure web ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... leg were swollen to my size, and in the morning all of the swollen part was as black as a coal. He was suffering terribly, and I tried to get hold of the Arab snake doctor but couldn't locate him, so I wired to Rochester for Rattlesnake Pete. He came down and a mighty interesting man he is, but he couldn't do anything which 'Doc' up at the hospital hadn't done, and it was five days before my man was out of danger. He was not a drinking ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... news came through the telephone that Bailloud's Brigade had been driven in by a big Turkish counter-attack, with a loss of 400 men and some first class officers. Most of us showed signs, I will not say of being rattled, but of having stumbled against a rattlesnake. Gouraud remained unaffectedly in possession of himself as host of a lunch party. He said, "We will not take the trenches by not taking the coffee. Let us drink it first, and then we will consider." So we drank ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... foregoing summer into which he had entered, dreading the encroachments of the white men, and particularly apprehensive of the strength which their friendship gave to his hereditary enemies, the Mohegans, sent to Governor Bradford a bundle of arrows tied up in the skin of a rattlesnake. Squantum was called to interpret the significance of such a gift. He said that it was the Indian mode of expressing hostility and of sending a declaration of war. This act shows an instinctive sense of honor in the barbarian chieftain which civilized men do not always imitate. ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... After that he didn't last long. They made it so unpleasant that he quit the service—crowded him out, that's all. He was a born soldier, too, and didn't know nothing else nor care for nothing else; as fine a man as I ever served under, but it soured him so that a rattlesnake couldn't have lived with him. He tried to go into some kind of business after he quit the army, but he wasn't cut out for it, and never made good as long as I knew of him. The last time I seen him was down on the border, and he had sure grown cultus. He had quit the squaw, who was livin' ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... head man had been dinning his instructions into him for some time, he said he might go, until his attendance was required. But Andy moved not; he stood with his eyes fixed by a sort of fascination on some object that seemed to rivet them with the same unaccountable influence which the rattlesnake ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... you like a rattlesnake, and would do any thing in his power to get you out of his way," the young girl said, giving out the words as if she was performing a painful operation and only doing it under a strong sense of duty. "Tell me: is there any point in which your interests would run ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... more faithful slave in all the Southland than old Uncle Snake-bit Bob. He had been bitten by a rattlesnake when he was a baby, and the limb had to be amputated, and its place was supplied with a wooden peg. There were three or four other "Bobs" on the plantation, and he was called Snake-bit to distinguish him. Though lame, and sick a good ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... this region were very tame, for they had not learned to fear men. Yet among them the explorers found some dangerous enemies. One was the grizzly bear, and another the rattlesnake. But the greatest scourges of all were the tiny, buzzing mosquitoes, which beset them ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... fill your glass, my trusty friend, And fill it sparkling to the brim— A flowing bumper, bright and strong— And push the bottle back again; For what is man without his drink? An oyster prison'd in his shell; A rushlight in the vaults of death; A rattlesnake without his tail. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... rent. Lowell was going there on account of his wife, a delicate flower-like nature already beginning to droop. Doctor Holmes was going on account of Lowell, and perhaps with the expectation of seeing a rattlesnake; Fields was going on account of Lowell and Holmes. Mrs. Frances Kemble, already the most distinguished of Shakespearian readers, had a summer cottage there; and it was hoped that in such company Hawthorne would at last find the element to which he ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... declaring war on him? In that case he could certainly afford to ignore the letter as coming from a source unworthy of serious consideration. A worth-while enemy does not give a warning; he strikes. The cheapest thing about a rattlesnake is its rattle. Varr started to run over a list of recognized foemen who might have done this ill-natured deed, but presently desisted; ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... acknowledged lightly. "But we've got to admit that I got across all right this time. And, as you've heard, I suppose, right under Mr. Bad Man's nose, since I was carrying that little wad last night when Hap Smith got cleaned at Poke Drury's. Well, I'll be going. Just give that rattlesnake Pollard the five thousand and an invitation from me to keep off my ranch, remembering that it doesn't happen to belong ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... were afraid of snakes, but soon learned that most of them were harmless. The only venomous species seen on our farm were the rattlesnake and the copperhead, one of each. David saw the rattler, and we both saw the copperhead. One day, when my brother came in from his work, he reported that he had seen a snake that made a queer buzzy noise with its tail. ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... Washington, who has been a close student of this subject, has found in this country no less than 27 species of poisonous snakes, belonging to four genera. The first genus is the Crotalus, or rattlesnake proper; the second is the Caudisona, or ground-rattlesnake; the third is the Ancistrodon, or moccasin, one of the species of which is a water-snake; and the fourth is the Elaps, or harlequin snake. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... punctured an animal with the tooth of a rattlesnake. The head of this serpent had lain in a dry state for sixteen years exposed to the air and dust, and, moreover, had previously been preserved more than thirty years in spirits of wine. To his great ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... ears of the young lady. The sage-fowl's inherent weaknesses were paraded before her; the hoot of the owl was imitated with ludicrous solemnity; other fowl were described with wonderful attention to detail; and the inevitable rattlesnake was pointed out to her as a serpent whose chief occupation in life was that of posing in the shadow of the sage-brush as a target for the revolver of ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... family pride which mainly, if not entirely, sprang from it. Such a heart as Garcia's, what a place to nestle in! Such a creature as Coronado seeking comfort in such a breast as his uncle's was very much like a rattlesnake warming himself in a hole of ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... shudder pass through his person as he looked at Owen. For suddenly he seemed to realize that the rattling sound, which he had of course thought was caused by a noisy locust on a nearby tree, was in fact the deadly warning that an enraged rattlesnake gives when striving to strike its ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... not blame a rattlesnake, nor a shark. These creatures only fulfil their natures. The shark who devours a baby is no more sinful than the lady who eats a shrimp. We do not blame the maniac who burns a house down and brains a policeman, nor the mad dog who bites a minor poet. But, none the ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... the water. He slipped the end of the pole under it and slung it ashore. "There! how do you like that?" said he, and he headed the boat upstream again. It was a "copper-bellied moccasin," he declared, whatever that may be, and was worse than a rattlesnake. ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... living at Shi-tai-mu, they sent "Yellow Foot" to the mountain in the east (at the headwaters of the Rio Grande) to obtain a dog. After many perilous adventures in caverns guarded by bear, mountain lion, and rattlesnake, he got two dogs and returned. They were wanted to keep the coyotes out of the corn and the gardens. The dogs grew numerous, and would go to Mashongnavi in search of food, and also to some of the people of that village, which led to serious ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... Blue Dryad, sometimes erroneously described as a variety of rattlesnake, is, I understand, supposed to kill the average man, under favourable circumstances, in less time even than the deadly Copperhead—which it somewhat resembles, except that it is larger in size, and bears a peculiar streak of faint peacock-blue down ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... "So can a rattlesnake; but at any rate the reptile is honest, for he gives plenty of warning before he tries to strike; and that's more'n Peg would do, if I ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... little, after the change had come to you, a change definite and enduring, which left your inner processes forever different from what they had been, you turned sharp to the west and rode five miles along the knife-edge Ridge Trail to where Rattlesnake Canon led you down and back to your ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... Villa Nova I saw a rattlesnake for the first time. I was returning home one day through a narrow alley, when I heard a pattering noise close to me. Hard by was a tall palm tree, whose head was heavily weighted with parasitic plants, and I thought the noise was a warning that it was ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... deal less sin and misery in this world. As for me, Hannah, I feel it to be my solemn duty to Nora, to womankind, and to the world, to seek out the wretch as wronged her and kill him where I find him, just as I would a rattlesnake ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the field of fiction with two "medicated novels," Elsie Venner and the Guardian Angel. The first of these was a singular tale, whose heroine united with her very fascinating human attributes something of the nature of a serpent; her mother having been bitten by a rattlesnake a few months before the birth of the girl, and kept alive meanwhile by the use of powerful antidotes. The heroine of the Guardian Angel inherited lawless instincts from a vein of Indian blood in her ancestry. These two books were studies of certain ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... time ter fool with ye now, old rattlesnake," she called back, as she went. "Ef I wasn't in sech a hurry, I'd ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... the place abounded with rattlesnakes—the rattlesnake's nest, it might have been named. Wherever we brushed among the bushes, our passage woke their angry buzz. One dwelt habitually in the wood-pile, and sometimes, when we came for firewood, thrust up his small head between two logs, and hissed at the ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was pumped dry, a man standing on its bottom, just under where we then were, would be more than one hundred and fifty feet lower than the surface of the water at the Portland wharves. Coming up the Dingley Bay, had a good view of Rattlesnake Mountain, and it seemed to me wonderfully beautiful as the almost setting sun threw over its western crags streams of fiery light. If the Indians were very fond of this part of the country, it is easy to see why; beavers, otters, and the finest fish were abundant, and the hills and streams furnished ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... plant only a few times about Chillicothe. Mr. Lloyd identified it for me. It has very much the shape of a pear. The skin is quite hard, smooth, olivaceous-black with yellow mottling patches not unlike the skin of a rattlesnake. The peridioles, which are small ovate sacs bearing the spores within, are very distinct. The interior of the plant when mature is dark, and it breaks and disintegrates from the upper part very like C. cyathiformis. This is a very interesting plant whose ovate sac-like ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... life and character in a typical New England town, the book itself is a remarkable study of heredity—a study only relieved by the author's kindly humour. The unfortunate child, doomed before her birth to suffer from the fatal bite of a rattlesnake—an incident unduly extravagant in some critics' opinions—and only throwing off the evil influence on her death-bed, is one of the most pathetic figures in all American literature. It was not until ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... have found the cloudy brown liquor virulently repulsive. It contained in solution, with other things, the vital element of surprise, for it was comparatively odourless, and, unlike the chivalrous rattlesnake, gave no warning of what it was about to do. In the case of Penrod, the surprise was complete and ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... many kinds: one snake (a Trigonocephalus, or Cophias [18]), from the size of the poison channel in its fangs, must be very deadly. Cuvier, in opposition to some other naturalists, makes this a sub-genus of the rattlesnake, and intermediate between it and the viper. In confirmation of this opinion, I observed a fact, which appears to me very curious and instructive, as showing how every character, even though it may be in some degree independent of structure, has a tendency to ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... again, quaintly addressing me by a name not my own—"believe me, she'd fight a rattlesnake and give it ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... and resembling the purple grape. We had some rain this morning, attended by high wind; but generally speaking, have remarked that thunder storms are less frequent than in the Atlantic states, at this season. Snakes too are less frequent, though we killed one to-day of the shape and size of the rattlesnake, but of a lighter colour. We fixed our camp on the north side. In the evening, captain Clarke, in pursuing some game, in an eastern direction, found himself at the distance of three hundred and seventy yards from the camp, at a point of the river whence we had come twelve ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... is not expected that you will engage in any bear hunt on your first arrival, but will wait until you know something about the mode of hunting them. It frequently happens on the hunt that you come in contact with a rattlesnake. He will give you timely notice by springing his rattles, which you will do well to heed. It is a well-known fact that Northern invalids are not afraid of alligators, bears, snakes, pole cats or any of the poisonous insects that infest the Swamp ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... blazing with defiance. Some said that his teeth chattered, others that he went out whistling the Persian National Hymn. There was no mistaking, however, the effect produced by the encounter on the man who had seemed to force it. If a rabid dog or a rattlesnake had suddenly thrust its companionship on him he could scarcely have displayed a greater access of terror. His air of authority and assertiveness had gone, his masterful stride had given way to a furtive pacing ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... laid away there as neatly as a corpse in its coffin, and resurrected it for the use of Mr. Pullwool. By tens, by twenties, by fifties, and by hundreds the dollars of the ambitious citizens of the little metropolis were charmed into the portemonnaie of this rattlesnake ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... their bright little eyes. We had a splendid chance to see them once when our train stopped right in the middle of a prairie for a long time. We got off and walked quite a way with Mr. Hartley. I saw a rattlesnake, and I'm afraid I screamed. I screamed again when the horrid thing wiggled into one of the dog houses. Mr. Hartley says they live together sometimes, but if I were that dog he wouldn't ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... proceed, and at the first step a rattlesnake rears up at her, hissing and springing its rattles. She recoils in fear, but remembering the cowardly nature of the creatures, throws sticks at it, and it ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... man I worked with as a partner playing three-card monte. His right name was Jackson McGee. He was born and raised in the mountains of Virginia, and spent much of his early life catching snakes, which he would sell to showmen, who gave him the name of "Rattlesnake Jack." He was over fifty years of age, and weighed about 160 pounds, at the time he and I worked together. He was a good talker, and had but few equals at throwing the three cards. He looked like the greenest sort of a backwoodsman when ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... Sunburnt Boys Gray Days An Invalid A Caged Mocking-Bird Dawn Harvest Two Pictures October The Old Clock Tear Stains A Prayer She Being Young Paul Jones The Drudge The Wife Vision September Barefooted Pardon Time The Rattlesnake The Prisoner Sonnet Folk Song "97": The Fast ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... things to be done in a prison is the classification of the inmates. This is not done in the Missouri penitentiary. Here the mere youth often cells with a hardened old criminal of the worst description. I would rather a child of mine would be boxed up with a rattlesnake. In this institution there are nearly 2,000 criminals huddled up together—an indiscriminate mass. The officials are not to blame for this. They realize the terrible condition of things at the prison. They have ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... the Indians, about whom he had been dreaming, were upon him; his next that a rattlesnake clung to his finger; and finally, finding it to be the kitten bestowing some scratches on the hand that sought to bereave it of its prize, he uttered the latter exclamation, first in rage; but pleased that his condition was no worse, soon after called the ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... or sweat or smoke de reason. Dat ain't de reason. Dey a old, old, slowfooted somethin' from Louisiana and dey say he de conjure man, one dem old hoodoo niggers. He git mad at me de last plum-ripenin' time and he make up powdered rattlesnake dust and pass dat through my hair and I sho' ain't seed ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... window, where the morning sun Must touch it, stands the music-stand, and on each one Of its broad platforms is a pyramid of stones, And metals, and dried flowers, and pine and hemlock cones, An oriole's nest with the four eggs neatly blown, The rattle of a rattlesnake, and three large brown Butternuts uncracked, six butterflies impaled With a green luna moth, a snake-skin freshly scaled, Some sunflower seeds, wampum, and a bloody-tooth shell, A blue jay feather, all together ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... Indian woman at Olancha who made bottle-neck trinket baskets in the rattlesnake pattern, and could accommodate the design to the swelling bowl and flat shoulder of the basket without sensible disproportion, and so cleverly that you might own one a year without thinking how it was done; but Seyavi's baskets had a touch beyond cleverness. The weaver and the ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... drawn to the rattlesnake's power, As the smoker's eye fills at the opium hour, As a horse reaches up to the manger above, As the waiting ear yearns for the whisper of love, From the arms of the Bride, iron-visaged and slow, The Captain bent down to the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... traveler throughout Greece, and most of all in Arcadia. If on foot, he can pick up a stone, at sight of which the enemy will beat a hasty retreat. Greece seems to have been bountifully supplied with loose stones of the right size for this very purpose, just as the rattlesnake-plant is said to grow wherever the rattlesnake itself is found. If on horseback, he can easily escape, although the animal will not scruple to hang to the horse's tail or bite his heels. Such was Arcadia in March. No doubt, at another season it is a delightful retreat from the overpowering heat of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... now beyond any power of doing harm. You will be interested to hear," he continued, bending over the remains of the creature, "that this is an exceedingly rare species, a sort of second cousin to the rattlesnake found only in this part of the world ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... followed by a rattle, and now, flashing the light around, the scout saw upon a flat rock the curled-up form of a huge rattlesnake. ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... snakes used in this dance are treated from first to last with the utmost kindness and respect, especially the rattlesnakes, a dozen of which will frequently be squirming on the ground at once. It is noticeable that the Indians never pick up a rattlesnake when coiled, but always wait until it straightens itself out under the feather stroking, for it is claimed that the rattlesnake cannot strike uncoiled. At all events, when one is at its full length, the Indians not only catch it up fearlessly, but carry it with impunity in their mouths and ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... some of the Amerindian tribes reverence the rattlesnake as grandfather and king of snakes who is able to give fair winds or cause tempest. Among the Hopi (Moqui) of Arizona the serpent figures largely in one of the dances. The rattlesnake was worshipped in the Natchez temple of the sun; and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... story as, at least, improbable. Yet it is clear that the stories of the New World may have had an actual basis of fact; for the Heloderma horridum has been, beyond doubt, proved to be poisonous in as high a degree as a cobra or a rattlesnake. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... a stiff back, black beard, short hair, loud voice, and buff waistcoat, people of fashion, on the contrary, stand in continual awe; his tongue is to them a rattlesnake's tail wagging only as a signal for them to get out of his way; they quiver like an aspen at the sound of his voice, and for their own particular, would rather hear the sharpening of a saw: if such a one courts their acquaintance, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... and might ultimately be hanged, with general approval. If the man, in his unclipped proportions, did actually exist, it would be right that a combination should be formed to wipe him out of creation. He should be put down,—as you would put down a tiger or a rattlesnake, if found at liberty somewhere in the Midland Counties. A more hateful character, to all who possess a grain of moral discernment, could not even be imagined. And it need not be shown that the conception of such a character is worthy only of a baby. However many ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... wife," said I. "First of all, the boa is not poisonous; and then, besides that, the flesh of even poisonous snakes can be eaten without danger; as, for instance, the rattlesnake, from which can be made a strong and nourishing soup, tasting very like good chicken broth—of course, the cook must be told to throw away the head, containing the deadly fangs. "It is remarkable that pigs do not fear poisonous snakes, but can kill and eat them without injury. An instance ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Kansas Casey, and four other men were taking to the calaboose. They were doing their duty as gently as possible, and Marie was making it as difficult for them as possible. She was as mad as a teased rattlesnake, and not a man of her six captors but bore the marks of fingernails, or ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... rattlesnake crawled slowly and clumsily out from the shelter of a little ledge, his fearful eyes gleaming with deadly intentions against a ground-squirrel frisking upon the end of a mossy log, near where Captain Bob Bennett was seated, poring ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... died, only to be trampled by the deer or savage; and strawberries studded the ground like rubies, where the green and sunny hillsides reposed amid the silence, like sleeping infants in the lap of the forest. The rattlesnake glided undisturbed through its prairies; and the fog which hung in clouds over its stagnant marshes spread no pestilence. The panther, the fox, the deer, the wolf, and bear, roamed fearless through the more remote parts of the domain, for there were ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... from the San Gregorio," he cried passionately. "I love every rock and cactus and rattlesnake in it. Valgame Dios!" And the maimed right hand twisted and clutched as, subconsciously, he strove to clench his fist. "Ah, who was the coward—who was the traitor that betrayed us for a ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... It was pleasant riding over the green prairie. Now and then the children saw little prairie dogs scurrying in and out of their burrows. And once they saw a rattlesnake. But the serpent crawled quickly out of the way, and Bert and Nan did not stop to see where ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... a better, and a surer way," replied the scientist. "Get the rattlesnakes between ourselves and the cattle! Those steers will never go near a rattlesnake den, no matter how frightened they are, nor how badly stampeded! Quick! ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... tranquil presence, all the more quieting because it seemed to be so deadly sure and cool, Jean felt the uplift of his dark spirit, the acceptance of fatality, the mounting control of faculties that must wait. The little gunman seemed to have about his inert presence something that suggested a rattlesnake's inherent knowledge of its destructiveness. Jean sat down ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... the shoulders; the arms unusually long, giving him a terrible reach, the head round, well-shaped, covered with thick reddish hair; cold, light, and intelligent eyes, full of animosity and suspicion, reminding you unpleasantly of the rattlesnake's look, wary, deadly, and ready to strike. When he thought, his forehead wrinkled. His lips shut upon each other formidably and without softness, and the jaws thrust forward with the effect as of balled fists. One ear was slightly larger than the other, having ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... converted merchantman, the flagship of Commodore Hopkins. He joined the ship immediately, and in the latter part of December he had the honor of hoisting with his own hands the first naval flag of an American squadron. This was the famous yellow silk banner with a rattlesnake and perhaps a pine tree emblazoned upon it, and with the significant legend, "Don't tread ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... anybody that it happened to. He believed that if you gave a chicken-cock burnt brandy it could lay eggs, and that if you gave a boy burnt brandy it would stop his growing. That was the way the circus-men got their dwarfs, and the India-rubber man kept himself limber by rubbing his joints with rattlesnake oil. ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... has not heard of the rattlesnake or copperhead? An unexpected sight of either of these reptiles will make even the lords of creation recoil; but there is a species of worm, found in various parts of this country, which conveys a poison of a nature so deadly that, compared with it, even the ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... crush him as I would a rattlesnake. Because I wish to ruin him so that he will be left in my debt. So that I can hound him from this place by holding that debt over his head. It is worth two thousand to me to possess that power. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... feared that it was a war-ship of the hostile Spaniards, coming to destroy them. The vessel, however, passed by, without apparently seeing the encampment. Several tragic incidents ensued. One man was bitten by a rattlesnake. After suffering dreadful agonies he died. Another, who was fishing, was swept away by the current and was drowned. Fortunately, beds of excellent salt were found, formed by the evaporation of salt water ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... 'gobble' had broken my sleep. Then I climb'd some tall maize plants, and ate up the ears, And enjoy'd the repast, notwithstanding my fears; For great is my awe of the red Indian's gun, And I thought I had caught a slight glimpse of one. I saw, too, a rattlesnake creeping hard by, And heard his tail clatter, and mark'd his red eye. He coil'd himself up, for he spied me right soon, And was wishing, no doubt, for a bit of raccoon; Then, thinking the risk of ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... sent to Governor Bradford a bundle of arrows tied up in a rattlesnake's skin. The Governor put them away in the pantry with his other curios, and sent Canonicus a few bright new bullets and a little dose of powder. That closed the correspondence. In those days there were no newspapers, and most of the fighting was done without ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... used to call him Davy. He wasn't bad then; just a little boy to be cuddled and petted. Perhaps he was married. Perhaps he had a sweetheart waiting for him outside, and praying for him. And they snuffed his life out as if he had been a rattlesnake." ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... coffee, in which he found immense comfort after a hearty meal. To be disturbed at this most luxurious moment of the day was, to a man of his temperament, about as pleasant a sensation as being stung by a rattlesnake. ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... he saw a Rattlesnake That questioned him in Greek: He looked again, and found it was The Middle of Next Week. "The one thing I regret," he said, "Is that ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... There must certainly be some cunning strategy on her part. Subtle though her poison may be, I cannot believe that its mere injection, at any point whatever of the victim, is enough to produce so prompt a catastrophe. The ill-famed rattlesnake does not kill so quickly, takes hours to achieve that for which the Tarantula does not require a second. We must, therefore, look for an explanation of this sudden death to the vital importance of the point attacked by the Spider, rather than to the ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... butterfly. Miz. Prairie-Dog ain't find no fliers what wants to live un'neath de ground. But crawlers—bugs an' worms an' sich-like—dey mostly does live un'neath de ground, anyhow, an' de fust pusson what come seekin' house-room with Miz. Prairie-Dog was Brother Rattlesnake. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... got it," Dave exclaimed. "Those are the names of the chiefs. I know the names of a good many of their chiefs, and there's Rattlesnake and the Mountain Lion ...
— The Golden Canyon - Contents: The Golden Canyon; The Stone Chest • G. A. Henty
... You have never been poor," replied Mr. Sheldon, coolly. "I don't suppose I am as much afraid of a rattlesnake as the poor wretches who are accustomed to see one swinging by his tail from the branch of a tree any day in the course of their travels. I have only a vague idea that a cobra de capello is an unpleasant customer; but depend upon it, those foreign fellows feel ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... he growled with an injured air one afternoon when a fortnight had passed without any noticeable change in the atmosphere. "Wish I hadn't come back that night. Guess they'd have sung a different tune then! Maybe a coyote would have got me, or I'd have stepped into a rattlesnake's nest and been stung to death. Bet they'd have felt sorry when they found me—," he hesitated. His picture was too vivid, and he shuddered as he thought what a fate would have been his had a rattlesnake bitten him as he tramped across the pathless waste in his ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... are extremely hard to get even if shot, for they manage to run into their burrows somehow, even if mortally wounded. The Texans believe they go back even when quite dead; but then they are rather credulous, for some of them believe that the rattlesnake lives on friendly terms with the inmates of the burrows. The rattlesnakes were very numerous, for one day I killed seven. The first one I saw threw me into a curious instinctive state of fury, and I smashed it into pieces, while I trembled like a horse ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... horned toads crawl and hop amid this desolation; and the deadly little sidewinder rattlesnake lies basking in the blaze of sunshine, which it distils into venom. Sometimes the level plain is broken up into savage ridges and awful canons, along whose arid bottoms no water streams. As you stagger through their chaotic bottoms, you see vast boulders ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... the rabbit is drawn to the rattlesnake's power, As the smoker's eye fills at the opium hour, As a horse reaches up to the manger above, As the waiting ear yearns for the whisper of love, From the arms of the Bride, iron-visaged and slow, The Captain bent down to the Head ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... "One would think I was a rattlesnake. My unholy charm consists of a reasonable amount of address born of a great weakness for women and some personal magnetism,—the latter the offspring of the ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... 'They puts him over the jump at Seven Rivers. You see this Rattlesnake—they calls him Rattlesnake Bark in them later years—is bunked down in one of these yere jim-crow, barn-board hotels. Thar's a resoundin' form of guest in the adjoinin' room, snorin' to beat four kings an' a ace. Rattlesnake tries poundin' on the partition, an' sw'arin' at him, an' callin' ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the Kinchen—'so it seems that you have got into business already. Well and good—but I must caution you to beware of that Dead Man, for he is treacherous as a rattlesnake. He will betray you, if anything is to be gained by it—and even when no advantage could be gained, he will play the traitor out of sheer malice. He is well aware that I, knowing his real character, would not join him in the business, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... The Pueblo Indians, whom I have mentioned elsewhere in this treatise, regard the snake symbol with reverence; the Moqui Indians have their sacred snake dance, in which they worship the reptiles, handling the most vicious and poisonous rattlesnakes with seeming impunity; the Apaches hold that every rattlesnake is an emissary of the devil;[49] "the Piutes of Nevada have a demon deity in the form of a serpent still supposed to exist in the waters of Pyramid Lake;"[50] on the wall of an ancient Aztec ruin at Palenque there ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... of the extension phone went off like an annoyed rattlesnake. Walters scooped it up, spoke into it, listened for a moment, and handed it ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... tensed to strike, the hand not open but clenched. One stroke of that bear's paw and Mulligan Jacobs and all the poisonous flame of him would have been quenched in the everlasting darkness. But he was unafraid. Like a cornered rat, like a rattlesnake on the trail, unflinching, sneering, snarling, he faced the irate giant. More than that. He even thrust his face forward on its twisted neck to meet ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... in festoons and ropelike lines to the ground, along which they ran, often assuming the appearance of huge serpents; indeed, more than once, as I paced up and down, I could not help fancying that an anaconda, or boa-constrictor, or rattlesnake was creeping towards us. In the centre of the small open space was the fire, with my companions sleeping round it; near them the pile of baggage and the overturned boat; while the dark stream flowed by with a murmuring sound. ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Doctor! You know these French Canadians. They're worse scared of a doctor than of the evil one himself. Pete's usin' some old woman's stuff on his wounds,—bear's grease, rattlesnake oil, catnip tea,—what do I know? I can't make him ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson |
