the burrows. The
rattlesnakes were very numerous, for one day I killed seven. The first
one I saw threw me into a curious instinctive state of fury, and I
smashed it into pieces, while I trembled like a horse who has nearly
stepped on a venomous snake. Those Texans who do not believe in the
friendship of snake and prairie dog say that it is possible to make the
rattler come out of a hole he has taken refuge in by rolling small
pieces of dirt and earth down it. For they assert that the prairie dogs
earth up the mouth of the burrow when they know a snake is in it, and
the reptile knows what is about to happen.

Of other snakes there were the moccasins, water snakes, and esteemed
very deadly. It is said that when an Indian is bitten by one of these he
lies down to die without making any effort to save his life, whereas if
a rattlesnake has harmed him he usually cures himself. Besides these
there were the omnipresent garter snakes, and the grey or silver
coach-whip, both harmless. The bull snake is said to grow to an enormous
size, and is a kind of North American python or boa. About five miles
from our camp was an old hut, which was occupied by a sheep-herder whom
I knew. One night he heard a noise, and looking out of his bunk saw by
the dim light of the fire an enormous snake crawling out of a hole in
the corner of the room. He jumped out of bed and ran outside, and found
a stick. He killed it, and it measured nearly eleven feet. It is called
bull snake because it is popularly supposed to bellow, but I never heard
it make any noise of such description.

On these prairies there are occasionally to be found cougars, commonly
called panthers or "painters," although erroneously. In British Columbia
they are called mountain lions, and the same name is applied to them in
California, unless they are called California lions. I am informed by a
naturalist friend that they are the same species as the South American
puma. I knew a man in Colorado City who was a great hunter of these
animals, and he had half a dozen hunting dogs torn and scratched all
over their bodies, with ears missing, and one with half a tongue, who
had suffered from the teeth and claws of these cougars. He kept one in a
cage which was much too small for it, and I was often tempted to poison
it to put an end to its misery. This man had a regular menagerie at the
back of his house, consisting of various birds, this cougar, and two
bears.

These bears are not i