In article ,
"marcesent" wrote:

remember my Dad was trying to get away at the same time pushing it off the
driveway with the shovel. But who knows, the whole thing may have been one
big misunderstanding (my Dad and the stick, that is).

But remember, many creatures are not intelligent, but are perfectly capable
of aggression in self-defense (fire ants, for example).

Good example. ;-)
They swarm up your leg then the group "mind" starts them all stinging at
once!

I declare outright war on fire ants....


You're right about the "chasing" thing. Many times it's just the noise the
person makes while they're running away crashing through the brush that
makes them think the snake is chasing them. I spent a *bunch* of time in
East Texas doing my field work for herpetology in the early 90's and we
found more than our share of moccasins. Nasty things, they are - stink like
rotten eggs (sulphur) when you disturb them. But only once did I have one
get *really* aggressive with me - it was when I was in a canoe and I
happened to paddle right on top of the lilies where he was sunning himself.
I thought he was going to come *into* the canoe with me....he struck the
paddle like 6 times!!

Heh.

Sounds like that rather ticked off copperhead we had to "rescue" one
time. Since we were doing volunteer work for WRI, we had to capture it
alive... I refused tho' to crawl under the guys trailer for it and made
him unscrew the skirting.

We were successful but both of us had an adrenaline rush for nearly an
hour.

Wish I'd had a digicam way back then.


Hoop snakes are another Texas lore that makes me laugh. The best one was a
little old lady in East Texas that we were talking with on a cultural
herpetology trip. She claimed that the hoop snake took it's tail in it's
mouth (forming the "hoop") and then rolled at high speed chasing her across
the pasture, over a barbed wire fence (it jumped it) and then up a tree!
And the whole time the snake was whistling....I didn't have the nerve to ask
what tune.

lol I've heard that one too!
--
Peace!
Om

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a Son of a bitch"
-- Jack Nicholson