In a message dated 11/21/2002 1:06:07 AM Mountain Standard Time, NJ-MEMORIES-D-request@rootsweb.com writes: > Found out we have water moccasins, copperheads > and pygmy rattlers where we are moving in the country. Moccasins and > rattlers are both aggressive. Fortunately everywhere we've lived, including southern California, the rattlers haven't been aggressive. I've felt perfectly safe standing only three feet away from Pacific rattlers, which max out at 2 1/2 feet long and can't strike over half their length. Out here I've seen only one rattler in the wild that I can remember; that was last spring, and the thing was a young'un, I think, and not fussing with us at all. Back when we lived in Denville, one time we took a hike in the woods in Boonton with our two-year-old daughter in a backpack carrier. We were off the trail and suddenly heard a buzzing in the leaves. We hadn't heard of rattlers being around there -- only copperheads -- but we weren't taking any chances. We stopped dead in our tracks. All of a sudden little Susie started bouncing around in the carrier and yelling, "Nake! Nake!" (She had trouble with initial S's followed by another consonant.) We followed her finger to where she was pointing, and there was a nice long blacksnake, all curled up in the dry leaves and buzzing his tail around to make himself sound like a rattlesnake. I'd heard about them using that little subterfuge, but it was the first -- and only -- time I'd ever seen it. Doris in Colorado (Up2Nutrix@aol.com) "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." -- Jim Elliot, missionary and martyr