Panhandle plainsman: William Bartram clomped through Florida's unspoiled wilderness 200...

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So reads the handwritten sign on the small wooden box sitting atop a staircase that puts visitors squarely at his front door.

The attention-getter is intended to help ward off predators of the worst kind--the taro-legged variety. More than once over the years, they've found their way into this curious inner sanctum on Tallahassee's Milton Street.

The warning on the empty box assumes that would-be intruders can read, of course, plus something more of a given. That would be humans' morbid tear of snakes. The prankster is no ps