Now and again, but very rarely, they wheeled high over our
heads in silence, or with a distant, dying scream; and then, with a
fresh impulse, winged fleetly forward, dipped over a hilltop, and
were gone. They seemed solemn and ancient things, sailing the blue
air: perhaps co-oeval with the mountain where they haunted,
perhaps emigrants from Rome, where the glad legions may have
shouted to behold them on the morn of battle.
But if birds were rare, the place abounded with rattlesnakes--the
rattlesnake's nest, it might have been named. Wherever we brushed
among the bushes, our passage woke their angry buzz. One dwelt
habitually in the wood-pile, and sometimes, when we came for
firewood, thrust up his small head between two logs, and hissed at
the intrusion. The rattle has a legendary credit; it is said to be
awe-inspiring, and, once heard, to stamp itself for ever in the
memory. But the sound is not at all alarming; the hum of many
insects, and the buzz of the wasp convince the ear of danger quite
as readily. As a matter of fact, we lived for weeks in Silverado,
coming and going, with rattles sprung on every side, and it never
occurred to us to be afraid. I used to take sun-baths and do
calisthenics in a certain pleasant nook among azalea and
calcanthus, the rattles whizzing on every side like spinning-
wheels, and the combined hiss or buzz rising louder and angrier at
any sudden movement; but I was never in the least impressed, nor
ever attacked.
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