Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 June 1878 — A Snake Den in Kansas. [ARTICLE]

A Snake Den in Kansas.

Being in Concordia last Sunday, and having had my curiosity aroused several times during the last two years "by what appeared to be extravagant reports of a den of snakes at some place south of Concordia, I availed myself of an invitation to substantiate the story. The first thing that attracted our attention after hitching our horses was the almost unbearable stench which invaded our nostrils, and which we soon found was caused by two enormous pyrSmfds of dead snakes. Such a sight as met our gaze was the first of this kind in our experience, and was one that we can hardly expect to repeat. Snakes from fifteen inches to three and a half feet lay there coiled, straight, intertwined, massed and matted together, a huge pile of dead and decaying snake flesh. Not all were dead, for here and there among the pile might be seen some slightly moving ana quivering, showing that they were among those which had been consigned to the increasing pile that day. - The den itself is in a high rocky knoll or Waff. The knoll is a magnesian limestone formation of a very loose porous character. About fifteen or twenty cubic yards of earth and rock had been excavated, and on each side of this hole near the bottom was a ledge of rocks beneath which an excavation appears to have been made either naturally or by some wild animal forming a narrow cage which may penetrate into the inmost recesses of this mound, In this excavation were »•?-

eral young men, one of whom especially attracted our attention as, with a pair of heavy buckskin glover, he would incessantly be niton the watch, and now and then, reaching into the cavern as far as he could reach or get his body in, he would pull therefrom with his hands a large snake. Hundreds must have been hilled in this way on Sunday—certainly too many while we were there to keep any accurate count, and being not a very warm day it was not a good day for snakes either. The den was discovered two years ago by a boy who called a Mr. Graves to tne spot. He says that the ground was literally alive with them, and that he succeeded in killing three hundred in about half an hour. He said that to his knowledge almost 6,000 had already bteen killed at that spot; and it was proposed on Sunday next to call the neighbors together for several miles around ana have a “ snake bee” and a general extermination day, for which they would come prepared with materials and tools to insure success by excavation if necessary. 1 will only add that the snakes appear to be of the racer species, not, however, the species of blue racer common to Illinois, and not of a venomous nature. However, they show somo fight when they get wanned up, and strike at an approaching object promiscuously.— Atchison {Kan.) Champion.