Of "coachwhips" and "spreadin adders"...

I guess you must be a child of the 50's (or of some decade prior to that) in order to even recognize the names of the creatures mentioned in the title above. Growing up in my part of the deep south, we ran across these "critters" on a regular basis. Where did they go? I suppose as people began to move away from farming crops, fields and pastures became covered with pine trees which changed the habitat to the extent that coach whips and adders could not survive here any longer. The same scenario happened with the bob white quail which were plentiful here while crop farming was the rule.

Coach whips and spreading adders are two different species of snakes. The coach whip is a thin non-poisonous snake which can grow as long as six feet. Its scale pattern makes it appear braided and its color was usually dark like a whip. This snake was peculiar in that it was an inquisitive snake. Usually seen around fields where the crop or vegetation had grown up about waist high or better, the snake would often stick its head up a foot or so above the foliage and look right at you as you walked by. Coach whips are one of the faster moving snakes to have such length. The old folks say a coach whip would get away by grabbing the end of its tail with its mouth and forming its body into a circle and roll away like a wheel! Think that might be stretching it a little? *smile*

The spreading adder (eastern hog snake) is short and stubby with a characteristic pointed snout on its head which it used to root around in the ground in search of grubs, worms, or insects. Its underbelly was a vivid yellow (around here anyway). We often encountered adders in the yard or around freshly plowed ground. When distressed, they could puff out their heads resembling a cobra (some called them puff adders) and even play dead! The old folk always warned us that the “spreadin adder” bite would make you extremely sick. No death has ever been recorded that was a result of an adder bite, but, who would want to risk it?

Terry was a teammate of mine in college, a Yankee boy from somewhere in New York state. He had heard me talking about working bird dogs and hunting quail and wanted to come home with me one weekend to see for himself what it was like. I brought him home one Friday evening during quail season. My family was still in the chicken business and after showing him around a while, we came in to supper. Mama had her usual course of vegetables and somebody in the family had killed a mess of squirrels, so, she had fried them and added biscuit and gravy as well. Yankees were not big on vegetables, so ole Terry lit in on the squirrel, biscuit and gravy. Afterward, he said, “Best fried chicken I ever ate!”. There was a surprised look on his face when we explained that it was squirrel, not chicken!

The next morning, we set out to hunt quail. My old bird dog was working hard, but by this time, quail had begun to be pretty scarce and would not set good. We had walked about an hour when finally the old dog pointed a covey. The birds were just on the edge of a patch of woods that opened up into a large field covered with broom sage. It happened that when we got the covey up, the singles flew out and scattered into the sage. We started out into the field and had just about reached the area where the birds had settled, when I heard a loud “'Whoa!”. I looked to my left and saw Terry had dropped his gun and was running back toward me. I said, “What's wrong with you boy?”. He said while pointing toward where he had been, “Look!”. There, with its head raised up above the top of the sage by about a foot, was a coach whip! Terry had been almost eyeball to eyeball with it! I said, “Aww, it's just an ol coach whip, it won't hurt ye.”I said, “Look.”, and started walking toward the snake. It let me get within about ten feet of it then, zip!..down it went disappearing from sight. I said, “Just wait a minute.”. Sure enough after a few seconds, the old snake's head rose out of the sage again a few yards further away. He said “That thing is not scared of us at all is he?”. I assured him that he probably was scared or was at least instinctively wary. He said, “Can you catch one?”. I said,”Well, you could try, but, they are maybe the fastest snakes alive!” That pretty much put a damper on the bird hunting for the rest of the day. We went on and killed a few birds, but, he spent most of his time looking out for coach whips! He had quite a story to tell his grand children!

I wonder, as time goes along, what else might disappear from our part of the world. The coach whips, adders and quail are gone, replaced by deer, striped skunks, and wild turkey. Wild hogs are moving this way and we already have armadillos and coyotes. New tales and experiences await, so, turn off the TV's, ipads, iphones, and game boys and get outside!! I bet a grand kid would much rather hear a story about a coach whip than one about saving a princess on a video game! The choice is yours!