We immediately turned around and I managed to pick up the snake, without being bitten, just before a passing car got to it.  It was a small adult and appeared to be a female.  We decided that the best course of action would be to release it into a nearby undeveloped woody area about a block and a half away.  It took about five minutes to cycle back to the release point, holding the snake in one hand.  We released her beside a massive post oak that overhung the road slightly.  She swiftly disappeared into the weeds surrounding the tree, instead of climbing it.

Having completed our snake rescue, we continued our usual route back down the same street.  When we arrived at the point where we had found the snake, we were astonished to find another of similar size in the exact same spot!  This second snake was behaving in the same manner as the first and it too was rapidly caught without event.   Examining it in my hands, the second snake was almost the same size as the first; a small adult (P. o. lindheimeri does not run very large around here).  There was a slight difference in the dorsal coloration that anyone familiar with these snakes could have noticed and both appeared to have emerged from the same sandy driveway that ran to a suburban house about twenty yards away.  The driveway bordered a partially cleared lot which has been occasionally used as a goat pasture.

I was reminded of the old folklore allegation that snakes always are found "in pairs", and I could understand how such a circumstance would make a lasting impression--it did on me!  Occurrences like this could easily lead to the development of such a myth, barring a logical explanation, of course.  The logical part came with the examination of this new snake's hindquarters.  It was a male.  The first snake was a female.  So it would logically seem that the second snake was merely following a pheromone trail laid down by the first as she crossed at the exact spot. ¹  Snakes are highly olfactory creatures, a dimension of their existence that we humans scarcely notice, much less understand.

Another olfactory event occurred earlier in that same summer that engendered a new respect for the ability of the common domestic cat (although the cat in question would no doubt object to both the "common" and "domestic" adjectives) to detect snakes from their odor and/or pheromones. 

It was about 0700 hours on a cool but humid June morning.  We usually arose, allowed the cats out into the back yard, and then, a few minutes later, joined them to drink our morning coffee on the patio.  The large neutered male cat was walking from the patio across the yard (a distance of no more than fifteen feet) to a wash tub filled with water from which he usually drank.  Just before he reached the tub, he stopped abruptly, raising his head in the familiar phlemen gesture.  This behavior is ordinarily associated with the detection of the scent markings of other cats and consists of drawing back the upper lips, exposing the dentition.  It is thought that this behavior serves to draw molecules inhaled from the air into the vomeronasal organ which supplements the olfactory sense.   The cat immediately turned about 120^o away from his original course, heading for a large Mexican Ash growing adjacent to the patio.  Growling now, he rapidly ascended the tree, the fur on his back and tail erect.  Fearing a cat-fight, we roused ourselves from our lawn chairs and ran to the tree.  We saw no other cat but, on closer inspection, following the cat’s intense gaze, detected a fairly large (60”) adult Texas Ratsnake (P. o. lindheimeri) barely visible among the higher branches.

We quickly gathered up the highly disturbed feline and shuttled him back inside the house.  The ratsnake was draped across a branch that was far too narrow to support the weight of the portly cat anyway, but it would have been interesting to observe the outcome of the encounter, given the reputation—deserved or not—that cats have for eliminating snakes from an area.  

 ¹ By midsummer most Nearctic colubrid snakes have already completed their typical single reproductive effort.  Considerable circumstantial evidence exists, however, to suggest that P. o. lindheimeri in south Texas occasionally produces a second clutch of eggs.  Such an event would account for an adult female snake laying down a pheromone trail in the middle of July.