For a final Timber Rattlesnake post here’s the third “teenage” individual that we saw, coming upon this one leaving its den. It decided to go back home once it found ferocious humans. I find it endlessly engrossing that some of the wisest early Americans used the rattlesnake as a unique symbol for the burgeoning nation – “a strong picture of the temper and conduct of America” as Benjamin Franklin said. In his infamous “Join, or Die” political cartoon, created during the French and Indian War, Franklin depicted a rattlesnake in eight pieces representing New England as the head followed by the remaining seven colonies. On the rattlesnake he said, “I recollected that her eye excelled in brightness, that of any other animal, and that she has no eye-lids. She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance. She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage.”
