Myra Jones, age 8, of High Point, North Carolina, for her question:

Are snakes scared of people?

Some people think that a rattlesnake strikes because he is afraid that a person means to hurt him. This may or may not be true. A rattlesnake feeds on meat    and the experts tell us that he can tell when a warm blooded creature is nearby. This is when he gets ready to strike in his deadly fangs. If the victim is a bunny, the poisonous bite makes him too weak to struggle and the snake can swallow him whole

A snake lives in a quiet world of his own. He feels hunger and thirst and when he's hurt, he feels pain. But if he has any other feelings, they are very different from ours. He seems to have feelings of love or hate. Certainly a smallish snake tends to slither off in the grass when we come near him. But this may be because he likes peace and quiet, where nothing disturbs him. However, he just might be scared of people. But we can't be sure because we don't really know what feelings a snake has, if any.