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Gibbons: Run in with snake worth recounting

Posted: Monday, June 25, 2001

   Someone in a group I was speaking to about snakes asked me what my closest encounter had been with a really dangerous one. I said it had been an enormous bushmaster in Costa Rica that I had almost stepped on while on a field trip to collect specimens for a museum. He asked if I had killed the animal. I said no, but that the story was a complicated one.




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As it turned out, someone in the audience had a copy of the book in which I had written this story of my first meeting with a bushmaster. So, I borrowed the book and read the chapter aloud to the group.

   The following are excerpts from that chapter, called Once Upon a Bushmaster, from the book ''Their Blood Runs Cold: Adventures with Reptiles and Amphibians,'' published by the University of Alabama Press in 1983.

   First, the part about the snake, ''Bushmasters are elegant snakes. As the largest venomous snakes in the Western Hemisphere and the largest pit vipers in the world, they have an awesome reputation. Approaching 12 feet in length, some may have fangs more than an inch long. The color varies, but the basic pattern is one of an overall light brown, yellowish or pinkish with a row of rhomboids that look like black felt down the back. Of the dozens of New World pit vipers the bushmasters is the only species that lays eggs.''

   Next, the part about who we were, what we were doing, and what we did. ''We were kicking the grass in a clearing to make the frogs jump. When we saw one we pounced fast and stuffed our quarry into a cloth collecting bag. I was killing animals for science.

   ''One might have guessed that when we left the University of Alabama the following year, my companion (R.E.), rather than I, would be the one to go to Harvard for graduate school. Why else was I the one in low-cut sneakers leading the way through the jungle while he followed behind wearing shin-high combat boots? Was R.E. simply letting me catch the most animals? I don't think so.

   ''I did not seen the coiled, 9-foot bushmaster until my right heel touched the top of its head. Much of my body got into the act. The toes on my left foot sent me backward very fast. My mouth spoke, very loud. My pancreas felt a jolt from my adrenal gland output. My lungs and heart did what they were supposed to do, and the back of my right hand accidentally whapped R.E. squarely in the nose, causing his horn-rimmed glasses to go flying.

   ''I spun through the grass. Two small frogs cleared out of my path and I gave fleeting thought that I might have discovered a new collecting technique for obtaining specimens for scientific study. I rolled on past Raoul, our ever-silent Costa Rican guide. I was not sure whether he stood in awe of me or the snake. But once behind him I knelt to evaluate the situation.

   ''Raoul stood entranced, holding his rifle at his side, as always. A safe distance of 20 feet separated me and Raoul from the snake. But I felt as though my heart had stopped, and my blood ran cold, if those things really happen, when I saw R.E.

   ''Apparently inattentive to my shouts, or at least to their meaning, he had set about to find his glasses. The fact that he would grope through the grass on all fours directly toward a 9-foot bushmaster attests to his need to have them on. The snake must have been as amazed at our antics as Raoul was, for it lay in silent coil as R.E. fished around with his hands, not 4 feet away.

   ''Not relishing the idea of being partial cause to the envenomation and sure death of a potential Harvard student, I rushed back to where he was. Raoul and the snake both seemed captivated by the show. Neither moved as I yanked R.E. backward by the shoulders and then dragged him several feet through the grass. I was truly sorry about having stepped on his glasses during this part of the event, but to me the most critical item on the ground was a bushmaster as fat as a football.''

   The conclusion will appear next week, answering hanging questions. Does Raoul shoot the snake? Does R.E. find his glasses? Does the bushmaster decide we are unworthy of his time?




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