My back yard....

[muff528 3]

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Red next to yellow, kill a fellow
Red next to black, venom lack.

So which is the one that TK posted? Its got yellow bands next to both the red and the black bands.

Red touches yellow, so kill a fellow!
Red doesn't touch black on TK's snake so no joy for Jack.
Best to leave both kinds alone....not very many of either.

[MikeJD 0]

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"Red and Black: Friend of Jack
Black and Yellow: Kill a fellow"

"Red next to yellow, kill a fellow
Red next to black, venom lack."

"Red touch yellow, kill a fellow; Red touch black, friend of Jack."

OK, so the pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle? No, wait...

[Nutz 0]

Red touches black, pat him on the back.
Red touches yellow, kill a fellow.

I've never seen a coral snake of either variety in the wild. I've only seen one copperhead, it did not survive. One time we were in the swimming hole and a king snake and a cottonmouth washed in locked in a deathgrip. We all saw each other and went in different directions. Kind of like tracking away. Swimming was over so we went home.

"Don't! Get! Eliminated!"

[redlegphi 0]

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To identify a coral snake, the saying is actually:

Red next to yellow, kill a fellow
Red next to black, venom lack.

BOTH snakes (Coral snake and king snake) have all 3 colored bands. They are just in a different order.

http://www.floridaorienteering.org/nature/coralking.htm

I have a problem remembering rhymes at exciting
moments, so I came up with my own.
It relies more on common knowledge.

On a street light, red is stop, and yellow is caution.

If I see a snake where "stop" and "caution" touch,
it is a bad idea.

I'd like to point out that while these slogans are great and all, my good friends at wikipedia inform me that these rhymes don't hold true outside of the United States. Also, I'd point out that if you just make it a rule to leave all snakes alone, you don't have to worry about remembering rhymes to figure out if playing with this snake is going to get you killed.