Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1889 — SNAKES BY THOUSANDS. [ARTICLE]

SNAKES BY THOUSANDS.

Albert Tenent, an employe of John Miller, a farmer living about a mile and a half north of Glens Falls, N. Y., drove Into town Monday with a wagon load of snakes, which he offered to sell as curiosities. Tenent and two other men were building a blind ditch through a piece of swampy ground. Tenent went to a sandy knoll to remove sods. To his horror the loose soi beneath the sods seemed to be a mass of squirming snakes. He called the others to bis assistance and they dug down about four feet, throwing out snakes by the shovelful. The reptiles were from three or four inches to two feet long and were none of them probably oyer a year old. Three men killed snakes until th»y grew tired. One man slaughtered five hundred and then st">pped counting. The news spread quickly and the knoll was besieged by men and and boys, who killed the snakes by the hundreds as they crawled out of the sandy excavation. One estimate places the number at ten thousand, while others declare it must have exceeded that. Most of the snakes were harmless, but there were some copperheads and rattlers among them. The only way to account for the appearance of tbe snakes in the sand is that the spot must be a breeding place for all the snakes in the contiguoua swamps.