Animals: Copperheads

Alarmed by a report of the Southern New York Fish & Game Association that copperhead snakes were invading Westchester County, the Westchester board of supervisors pondered offering a bounty for dead copperheads. But first the supervisors wrote for advice to Dr. Raymond Lee Ditmars, curator of reptiles in the New York zoo and famed snake fancier and expert. Last week they got it. The Fish & Game Association was wrong, said Snakeman Ditmars. There was no copperhead menace in Westchester County yet. But a bounty might be a menace. Dead copperheads would be brought into the county, many a harmless milk snake would be mistaken for a copperhead. Worse, small boys would go snake hunting. Some would kill their snakes. Others the snakes would kill.