BLACKSNAKES They get to be four, five, six feet long quite commonly. No poison in them, but they crush their prey to death in a whole-body embrace. Like all snakes, they feel subtle vibrations and know we're coming, and that by our step we must be large. They will freeze laying out in a straight line with a slight wiggle in it. The wiggle, along with the faint pattern they carry on their backs, makes them look like a stick, more or less exactly. If you come too close nonethe- less, they can shake their tails in the dead leaves to sound like a rattlesnake. If you are startled but not fooled, they will flee. I have seen one of them climb a tree, essing up the rough bark, like a branch returning to the place from which it fell. A sight like the Old Fellow in Paradise, up a tree because a person was near. Not to entice humankind, but to escape it.