Infant Fascination
A little girl about three years of age was observed for a number of days
to go to a considerable distance from the house with a piece of bread
which she obtained from her mother. The circumstance attracted the
attention of the mother, who desired her husband to follow the child, and
observe what she did with it. On coming to the child, he found her engaged
in feeding several snakes, called yellow heads, a species of rattlesnake.
He immediately took her away and proceeded to the house for his gun, and
returning, killed two of them at one shot, and another a few days after.
The child called these reptiles in the manner of calling chickens; and
when her father observed, if she continued the practice they would bite
her, the child replied, "No, father, they won't bite me; they only eat the
bread I give them."