Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, June 1899: Volume LVVarious
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, June 1899: Volume LV
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
According to the Mexicans, there are two kinds of rabies: that
affecting the head and that affecting the stomach. When animals have
_rabia_ in the head they become stupid and move about slowly, biting
at everything they see or touch. They are not violent, and become very
thin. But when they have rabies in the stomach it gives them great
pain, and they bark and howl and race about frantically, chasing other
animals and tearing them. Mr. Cipriano Fisher, of Santa Catarina, told
me of his experience with a coyote which had rabies in the stomach. He
was hunting deer at Cape San Lucas, and had killed two. Carrying the
smaller one and his gun to camp, he returned unarmed, except for the
knife which every one wears in that region, to bring in the other. As
he went down a deep cañon he heard a coyote ahead, howling in the
peculiar way which he knew to be characteristic of the _rabioso_. All
the hunters claim they can recognize the howling of a rabid coyote,
and they say that no other animal will answer it or go near it. The
howling approached rapidly. Knowing that he could not escape by
running back uphill, nor kill it with his knife without being bitten,
he stepped quickly into the brush and cut a long green club. As he
turned back into the open place he saw the coyote down the cañon,
leaping up and snapping at the air. When the coyote saw him it broke
into a furious run up the trail, and when, as he says, about thirty
feet away, made a flying leap at his face. He jumped to one side,
struck the rabid animal in the back of the head as it passed, and
killed it with the one blow.
Skunks are particularly dangerous to persons who sleep out at night.
J. Ellis McLellan, a field collector of the United States Department
of Agriculture, whom I met at San José del Cabo, told me of an
unpleasant experience he had with a skunk while coming down from La
Paz. On account of the heat he had ridden in the night as far as Agua
Caliente, where he stopped near a ranch house to sleep till morning.
Although the night was warm, he covered his head with a _serape_ for
protection from insects and wandering animals. Early in the morning he
was awakened by a twitching at his blanket and, raising the _serape_,
saw a skunk biting and jerking at it. Realizing the gravity of the
situation, he reached for his heavy knife, and then, suddenly throwing
aside the _serape_, he leaned forward and put his whole force into one
blow. As he ducked under the blanket again, for protection, the dogs
from the house rushed out in a body and pounced upon the dying skunk,
which they worried on top of McLellan until the ranch people beat them
off. When skunks bite at men's toes and ears, or at blankets in this
way, it is taken as an indication that they are rabid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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