Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 24, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1901 — A Good Day For Snakes and Bugs. [ARTICLE]

A Good Day For Snakes and Bugs.

R. W. Sprigg, alias Charley, the popular school janitor, was out snaking and bugging, Sunday, for the benefit of the school museum. He had unusually good success, as he caught one of those phenomnally active snakes, commonly called blue-racers, about four feet long- Also another, and evidently much rarer spotted snake of about the same length. This fellow was as pugnacious as the racer was lively, but Mr. Sprigg bagged them both alive, and without ruffling a feather or tipping a scale. The spotted snake has the . peculiarity of vibrating its tail rapidly, when in fighting mood, as if it considered itself a rattlesnake in disguise. The only big Indiana snake described in the books having this peculiarity is the “fox snake.” They are described as wholly harmless, and a good thing to have around, as they live on mice, moles and similar vermin. Charley also had good luck in bugs. He captured a number of tumble-bugs, the primeval foot-ball players of the insect world; and more unusual still some “doodlebugs,” otherwise ant-lions. These fellows construct little funnel shaped pits in the sand, and conceal all of themselves except their business end, otherwise their big pinchers, at the bottom of the pit. When ants and other insects came blundering along they fall into the pit and the ant-lion does the rest.