Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1896 — LIVING RAT TRAPS. [ARTICLE]

LIVING RAT TRAPS.

Big Snakes Make War on the Army ot Rodent*. On grass-covered plains and hillsides In South Africa you frequently come across spots apparently thickly Inhabited by some small running animal. Little paths wind about and cross each other in every direction, and may well be compared to the street* of a city on account of their proximity to each other and their numerous crossings. Each path is clearly marked by being almost destitute of herbage. If you trace them up, you will find that they all end in holes Just large enough to admit a halfgrown rat: and if you beat the thicker bunches of grass you will probably set' a small rat-like animal running at a quick little trot along the pathway to the burrow. He is a vole, very like a rat or mouse in appearance, but much less nimble and much more delicate than either: he is larger than a mouse, and considerably smaller than a rat. His fur. too. Is much longer and thicker in proportion, being more like that of a rabbit in its texture. Boys, both white and colored, in South Africa, consider them very good eating, and enjoy them roosted in embers whenever they can catch them. Mauy of the voles live in each colony, and the colonies are so numerous that you cannot travel a mile in any direction without crossing one. But the vole has a worst' euemy than the boys. If you approach a colony, and carefully survey all the runways, particularly If there be a bush there, you will perhaps see the enemy alluded to—a living rat trap—lying In the path; and the very sight of his broad, flat head and sinister, cot-like eyes will make your blood run cold. * He Is the terrible puff-adder, short, thick-bodied, broad-headed, long-fang-ed, death-dealing alike to vole and to man—and even to the prowling lion, should he in his wanderings set paw upon the deodly reptile. Ho is beautifully colored, having a groundwork of velvet black, with half moons of yellow and small specks of the same marked along his buck from head to tall. More than once I have found puff-adders lying thus in ▼ ole paths, and there Is no doubt that they devour great numbers of them. Nor will a puff-adder be satisfied with one. As soon as he has swallowed his first catch ho looks around a little, and then lies in wait for another, which he catches Just as he did the first. His method of securing them is this. He wanders about till he comes to the colony. Ills tongue tells him by the touch of Its delicate points that his prey is In the vicinity. For a while he searches busily about. If he catches sight of a vole he lies quiet In or close by the path. He knows by Instinct that his remaining motionless for a long time will arouse the little animal's curiosity. The vole, seeing the snake moving, Is probably frightened, and runs to his hole; but finding that he Is not pursued, he soon emerges and looks around for the snake. He discovers the reptile motionless. ."Dead,” thftiks the vole, “or asleep,maybe;” and he cautiously approaches to Investigate. Inch by inch he ventures, sniffing Into closer proximity to danger; he even runs nround the snake, who never moves In the slightest. At. last the unfortunate little qundruped allows its curiosity to master Its prudence; It ventures too close. The living spring of the snake’s neck flies out, and the volo is held struggling in the Jaws of the reptile, whose venom-distilling fangs are buried In its tender body. He never relaxes Ills jaws for an single Instant. Soon the deadly secretion does Its work, and the vole passes stomacliwnrd out of sight. The puff-adder then repeals his tactics with like success, till he is satisfied or becomes thirsty, when lie goes off to seek water in the kloops, or hides under a bush to avoid danger and sleep till his necessities arouse him to another change of lodging.