RATTLESNAKE HISTORY. 269 



its fangs, next its maternal affection and the security offered 

 to its young in ' its own bosom/ then its * pit,' and again its 

 rattle — each and all in turn have continued to occupy the pen 

 of zoologists as, with the advance of science, fresh light has 

 been thrown upon ophiology. 



American naturalists have continually something new to 

 tell us about the Crotalus, and not even yet have they 

 ■ decided among themselves of what precise use that remark- 

 able rattle is, either to its owner or its auditors. 



The various theories regarding its construction, mode of 

 growth, its age and supposed uses, will occupy the second 

 part of the present subject ; other rattlesnake features will 

 come in their places, but first an outline of what the early 

 English writers had to say about it will not be devoid of 

 interest. 



Natural history as a science was then in its infancy. 

 The Royal Society of England had as yet no existence ; 

 snakes were * insects,' because they lay eggs ; insects were 

 ' serpents,' because they creep ; and the majority of all such 

 ' creeping things ' were ' venomous,' of course. 



In those early days of science there was little or no 

 recognition of species, two, or at most three, different kinds 

 of rattlesnakes being named. The distinguishing rattle 

 seemed enough to separate them from all other snakes : they 

 were * the vipers with the bell,' or ' the vipers with the 

 sounding tail.' ' Vipers ' they were at once decided to be, 

 conformably with the old idea that vipers, in distinction to 

 every other kind of snake, produced their young alive. In 

 this respect those early observers were correct ; and from 

 their general characteristics they are still vipers in the eyes 



