Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1902 — An Interesting Family. [ARTICLE]

An Interesting Family.

A mother surrounded by an offspring so numerous that neither herself nor anyone else can count them, is certainly a very unusual spectacle. It is now tp be seen in Rensselaer however, and the old woman who lived in s .shoe and bad so many children aSbe did not know what, todo, wasgtotacircumstance in comparison.- * That such a family art hat ought to be a museum goes ".without saying, and that is jnst where they have brought up. They are the latest and most interestinU addition to our public school musium, The family consists of a mother snake and her little snakelete. The latter keep wriggling about and , are so coiled and twisted and bunohed together that it is impossible to count them accurately; but there are certainly more than 50 of the little-fellows. l*he family was caught last Saturday, iu, the tall grass close to the river, near Burk’s bridge, by Janitor Sprigg and Prof. Headlee. It consisted then only of the mother snake. She was caught alive and put in a box, and Sunday morning she was surrounded by the whole family, and in the box were numberless empty egg shells. The mother snake is nearly black, with some spots, and,is no doubt a water snake oPUfe common variety she is now shedding her BkVn and it is a little hard to identify her species exactly. The little fellows are beautifully spotted in blaek and white, and about 7 inches long and lively as criokets. These snakes, by the way are often called water mooca-

sins. It is a bad name for them, for they are totally non-poisonous, while the real water moccasin, of down south, is about as pizeu as they make ’em. Another very interesting addition to the snake department of the museum is the stuffed skin of a Texas bull snake, eight feet long. The snake was one of those in the Wallace snake show at the recent street carnival, and it died here very opportunely, and still more opportunely Mr. Spriggs happened along soon after the demise and found the deadjsnakf in the .poswitb’it by scaring peo. pie, mostly of the female persuasion. For Mr. Sprigg to see it was to want it, and to want it was to seize it; which he forthwith did, and bore it thenoe in triumph.