- 那Poison Ivy/Oak很普遍，散步时轻碰一下不会有什么的。
不用被网上的图片吓倒。
那小响尾蛇，拍得够可爱。象Ying说的，不用太担心。我童年长大的
地方，蛇也太多了，当然蛙也多，此不表。
去年秋有一回在山顶岩石上仰卧，听贝多芬。一醒来果然有一条小蛇，
它也仰首沐阳。我看了它许久，它也没有觉察，我动了一下，它溜走
有一首英文诗写蛇的，蛮有意思：
Snake
D. H. Lawrence
A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.
He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
i o And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.
Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.
He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.
And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.
But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.
And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.
He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.
And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.
I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.
I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.
And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.
And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.
For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.
Taormina, 1923
当然，他是D. H. Lawrence喽:)
&&&
有一年初春散步，看到路边一只仰首的蛇。停了一下，等它游过路去
，造些动静，没用。走近，那是一条出来晒太阳的腹蛇，也许阳光不
够劲，象又是被冻僵。
前天还看到一只幼龟，仰首沐阳。只是在路中间，怕被人踹着，我把
它搬到路边，它缩紧了头。
春秋间的冷血爬行动物都渴望阳光。或者象海子说的：
“你来人间一趟／你要看看太阳”
&&
谢谢Lucy这两照“毒之花”照！
WOA wrote:
lucy wrote:呵呵，无知者无畏：))) Lucy难道你没看见那大三角的头部？从小看过很多蛇展，但就记住一条，三角形头部剧毒，椭圆形的无毒。我要是距离如此近，早就腿软了，面对别的猛兽还可以壮胆，但对蛇最没脾气，邪气太重。
***刚刚有人说这蛇是： California night snake
和大家聊天, 才知道我拍的蛇居然是响尾蛇, 拍的红叶居然是 posion oak。我怎么偏偏和有毒的东西结上了缘！:)
在网上看有关Rattlesnake的介绍， 吓得魂飞魄散, 实在是后怕...
今天和同事聊了一下， 得知 Baby Rattlesnake 是更可怕的， 因为它们还没学会dry bite! 今天再看蛇的圆眼睛， 有丝丝的寒意！
晚上找出SAS Survival Handbook: How to Survive in the Wild, in Any Climate, on Land or at Sea 在看！想想也许只有坐在家里看书， 看电影，写博客， 做饭， 绣花最安全！
Approximately 8,000 people a year receive venomous snakebites in the U.S., 9-15 victims die. (FDA)
25% of adult rattlesnake bites are dry, with no venom injected. (Brown, 1997)
Rattlesnakes can only strike a distance equal to 1/2 their own length
xw