Show age of rattlesnakes H OW can you tell the age of al a li l i rattlesnake most people would say by counting the number of rattles on his tail scientists assert however that this is a very poor method because the snakes add a new rattle every time they shed their skins which occurs from two to seven times a year many a are r e t the h e superstitions which have grown up about the customs of poisonous snakes especially rattlers many cowboys say for instance that a rattler will never crawl over a lariat or rough hair rope for this reason many sleep out in the open with their lassoes lassoer carefully circled around their blankets but a rattler will actually cross such a rope as often as an any 7 other kind of snake another superstition which errs on the side of safety is is that a rattler is capable of biting clear through the toughest shoe leathers but experiments peri ments have shown that while a snakes fangs are very sharp their penetrating power is small this is because a snake usually strikes with its mouth open to nearly a degree angle and thus has very little leverage the leather of any ordinary boot is sufficient to protect its wearer finally there is a widespread mistaken notion about the distance a snake can strike even from a coiled position snakes cannot strike farther than a distance of half their length thus a six foot snake could not bite a person m more ore than three feet away and since they must strike at an angle a person is rarely bitten above the calf of the leg |