"Tsu Dho Nimh" wrote in message
...
snip
The sound of a rattlesnake can FREEZE a human even if they have
never heard it before. As a child, I was rockhopping down a
talus slope in AZ and heard a very menacing sound coming from
under the rock I had just landed on.

snip

We stumbled on to one sunning himself near a crag we wanted to climb
Virginia. We watched him for a few, and then he slid off the path and let us
pass, nary a rattle.

BV.