They are startling though, if you're not expecting them. I've been sort of de-conditioned from being too startled, though, since I get baby snakes in the house from time to time. I'm in an old log house and they make their way up from the basement some point after hatching. It was years before I identified them as baby black rat snakes, since at that age they're still mottled in color and aren't black yet. I also get a few baby Eastern milk snakes (reddish triangle on the top of the head). And sometimes those little bitty black snakes with the collar on. I've never seen one longer than about 8 inches.
The cats are delighted with them, of course. Self-propelled string! When I find the snakes, I always pick them up (carefully, right behind the head) and toss them in the general direction of the St. Francis statue in my herb garden. It's just off the deck, and not far enough away from the cellar entrance, but what the heck.
I did get bitten once (an inconsequential pinch), by incautiously picking up one that I thought the cats had killed. I was wrong.
M
PS--I once worked with a woman who was so snake-phobic that when someone played a mean trick on her by putting a rubber snake through the bathroom door, she had major hysterics and it took them about an hour to get her out (she had slammed the door shut on it and by gosh wasn't going to let it loose) and calmed down.
