Academy of Science. 37 



was lauced again upon the other side, affording more relief. In about three min- 

 utes after the bite, the patient grew slightly faint, and lay down npon the ground 

 awhile, during which period Prof. Mudge, with one of the students, continued 

 sucking the wound. 



One hour after the bite, the string was removed from the finger, after which 

 the hand aud wrist swelled up to about twice their natural size, and the arm be- 

 came much discolored. The swelling had entirely subsided in forty- eight hours, 

 but the discoloration continued for a week. The wound caused by the bite healed 

 in two weeks, without loss of the nail. The nail, however, from some cause, 

 showed a black spot upon it, just opposite the bite, which spot has just disappeared 

 three months afterward. The pulse of the patient, five hours after the bite, had 

 fallen down to fifty per minute; two hours later it had risen to fifty-six; the next 

 morning it was beating at sixty, and in twenty-four hours it had regained its usual 

 rate. It may be also interesting to note, that Prof. Snow responded promptly to 

 the dinner-call, aud ate so much more than usual, that the cook suggested that a 

 few more suake bites in camp would exhaust the supply of food on hand, and an 

 extra trip to the station for supplies would be inevitable. To the surprise of all, 

 the Professor was out all the afternoon, collecting as eagerly as though nothing 

 unusual had happened to him. 



In regard to the number of rattlesnakes killed during a sojourn of thirty days 

 upon the i)lains, only fifteen are recorded. 



It should also be stated that Prof. Mudge took the snake in charge while Prof. 

 Snow was lying down, and put it into the bottle head-foremost, without any 

 apparent difficulty, so now our President can not only inform his classes in natural 

 history the best method of treating a rattlesnake bite, but also inform them of the 

 latest and most approved style of bottling them. 



Another rattlesnake bite came under the specid notice of the writer, in the 

 harvest field of his brother, Mr. Forrest Savage. 



It was received by one of the harvest hands, Mr. George Risley, while engaged 

 in binding wheat during our last summer's harvest. The reaper had just passed 

 over the snake, aud Mr. Risley was binding close behind it. The bite was received on 

 the second finger of the right hand, j ust above the knuckle-joint, while in the act of 

 taking up a gavel for binding. The snake seemed to be concealed beneath the 

 bundle, and was probably irritated somewhat by the previous passage of the reaper 

 near its resting place, or, it may be, over a part of its body. Mr. Risley describes 

 the bite as a blow, accompanied by a hot, burning sensation. When he withdrew 

 Ms hand from underneath the grain, the snake followed with its fang still buried 

 in his finger. A single jerk of the arm failed to release its hold, and not until a 

 second and more vigorous motion of the arm did the reptile's fang tear its way 

 from the cuticle of the finger; and now, six months afterwards, a large scar marks 

 the place where the bite was given. The suake was killed — it had six rattles and a 

 button. The alarm was immediately given to the other hands in the field, and a 

 man was dispatched at once to the nearest house — that of Mr. Bates — for whisky. 

 About a pint was obtained and swallowed, as Mr. Risley expresses it, "straight." 



By this time — about ten minutes after the bite — the arm had swollen to about 

 twice its natural size, and had turned to a very dark and mottled color. The 

 whibky reduced the swelling almost instantly, and partially restored it to its natural 

 color. The swollen arm was ihen tightly bandaged, and the young man was soon 

 carried in a buggy, the distance of two miles, to his home. Arriving home, his 

 over-anxious friends administered about as much more whiskj^ as was taken in the 

 field. Then the patient became unconscious and almost unmanageable until the 



