--Excerpt From the Wilderness Survival Guide--

(chapter on snakes, p. 44)

   ...so when on a hungry Spring
   day you come across one 
   revealing its clumsy intentions
   by rustling the tall grass and
   wearing antithetical clothes,
   say a copperhead in obsidian
   tails or a king coral in sandy
   culottes, bite your tongue.
   Don't tell it rodents aren't 
   caught that way. Think first.

   Perhaps the snake is on a diet
   or slithering to a costume ball. 
   Is it possible through the 
   thick brush you mistook this
   cobra for a garter or even a
   rattle? Have you eaten any 
   poisonous berries or suspect 
   mushrooms? When in Nature one
   must be humble about one's 
   intuitions. Are you feeling 
   well? Is your vision blurry or
   your heart aflutter? Is this 
   the Wilderness Survival Guide? 

   Remember: If you must proceed,
   do so cautiously. Wild animals 
   may behave unpredictably.