The large cat cautiously approached the stone, crouching warily. Her whole body was stretched, with muscles taut, ready to leap away. The stone was about the size of a large fist, reddish, rounded, smooth and striated. It was among the flagstones a few feet from where we were sitting, enjoying a glass of wine and the cool of the early evening.
Crouching, with one paw raised and ready to strike should the stone do anything untoward, the cat sniffed. Deciding that this stone was harmless she moved on to other stones and rocks that were artfully placed among the flags and gravel. This was new behavior - although the cat was a recent arrival we had watched her in the garden many times, and had never seen this fear of stones, or what lay beneath them. We quietly observed, speculating that she had been startled by a grasshopper or a cicada. Moving in a low crawl, she closed in on a piece of Woodbine sandstone, a common rock across the southern states. The sandstone is in hues of red or orange and brown, and angular where broken, or smooth from wind or water. Close now to the stone the cat stretched out her neck, nose twitching. She drew back, raised one front paw and smacked the stone. This was also found to be harmless and with great nonchalance the cat sauntered away.
Our evening walks around the garden now had a new focus, watching the cat investigate any reddish, mottled or striated stone. This included a shallow terracotta dish that we kept filled with water, where the cat regularly drank. This dish was now subject to the same level of inquiry as other lifeless but very suspicious objects.
The Stone in the Wood Pile
About a week after we first saw this odd behavior we paused to look over the fence by the compost heap. On a pile of large logs I saw something that made me draw a sharp intake of breath.
"What?" asked my husband, in alarm.
"Copperhead," I said, pointing to the coiled snake at the end of a log.
The snake seemed unaware of our presence, lying absolutely still and apparently quite relaxed. Twenty feet from the house we had a highly poisonous snake. Although a bite from a copperhead might not be fatal to a fully grown human it will be very painful and might mean a couple of days in a hospital bed. So we stared at it for a few moments and commented on how pretty it was.
Pretty Snake
The copperhead really is a very attractive snake. The classic coloring is darker bands on a tan ground, but there are also variations where the bands do not meet across the back. The snake on the log pile had blotches rather than bands, but it had the wedge shaped head, natural frown and venom filled sacs of a copperhead, as well as the heat seeking indentations of the pit viper. The coloring was very similar to the dry oak leaves in the compost heap.
Suddenly the cat's lithophobia made perfect sense. The snake, coiled asymmetrically, looked very similar to a small rock, especially the common rock of woodbine sandstone, which was laid down in marine tidal flats going back to the cretaceous era. The snake was also well camouflaged among dead leaves and on red clay, all three forming part of the habitat this little snake had evolved with. I could easily imagine the cat being startled by a suddenly moving rock, making her distrustful of all reddish rocks for a while.
Snake Charming
As we are somewhat environmentally friendly my husband said, "I don't feel obliged to kill it just because it's venomous, but clearly it needs to be relocated." Clearly, I thought. He went to get a large bucket and his home made gaffer hook, sending me inside for my camera. "I'll just keep shooting if you get tagged, then." I said, "Is that the idea?"
He gently hooked the snake and tried to guide it into the bucket, at which point the copperhead gave up the rock impersonation and moved. Fast. Dodging the gaffer hook, it slipped through a gap, deeper into the log pile. "Watch out," my husband cried. I was watching. The little snake doubled back below the logs, found a space and slid through the fence into the field behind our house. Seeing a snake go one way and a snake go the other way, my husband thought there were two, and envisioned them mating and laying eggs in the warm and cozy compost heap, six feet away. Copperheads actually bear live young, but that does not rule out my compost heap as a birth chamber. I would be wary when delving into that heap for a while, although not quite as flamboyantly wary as the cat with the rocks.
My husband walked towards the house and another glass of wine.
"That was exciting," he said.
Note: I invented the word lithophobia, being unable to find a word for fear of rocks.
Sally Anne Lewis - Sally has master's degrees in science and journalism, is fascinated to a degree in most things. Always something to learn.
