POISONOUS SNAKES OF NORTH AMERICA. 399 



by Charles C. Abbott, M. D., entitled "Model Book of Natural History," the writer 

 eays, on page 499: "The threadbare subject of snakes swallowius" their young. has 

 been discussed again and again. The sum and substance of the matter is — they 

 don't." * * * The fact of the matter is — </ie^ rfo; and men believe they do, because 

 they have seen the young in tlie act. Dr. Abbott denies this truth, and yet on page 

 72 of his "Model Book," he ■writes: "Honey badgers are said to sit on their 

 haunches and shade their eyes with one paw while on the lookout for a bee tree. 

 This may seem a fishy story, but there is no reason for not accepting it. The world 

 is more fnll of marvels than mankind liave imagined." 



Surely, the alleged performance of tlie snakes is not any more mar- 

 velous than that of the honey badger! 



It was noted under the Harlequins, or Bead Snakes, that those poison- 

 ous snakes are closely imitated by certain kinds of harmless ones, so 

 close, in fact, that it is sometimes necessary to discriminate very nicely 

 in order to distinguish them. Some of the crotalids are subjects 

 of a similar mimicry which has given rise to a similar confusion of 

 names. Tims the ordinary and very harmless hog nose snake, or 

 spreading adder, is in many districts known as the copperhead, on 

 account of its superficial resemblance to the latter and the dread 

 inspired by its certainly formidable looking antics is still heightened 



Fig. 33. 

 -UNDER SIDE OF TAIL OF WATER MOCCASIN. 



by the terror which tradition attaches to the name. The case of the 

 water moccasin is similar. The name Moccasin has nearly lost its sig- 

 nificance and needs a qualifying adjective in order to convey with cer- 

 tainty the meaning of the employer whether he intends the poisonous 

 or the harmless kind. Dr. (t. Brown Goode has called attention * to the 

 close imitation of Agkistrodon piscivorus (the Moccasin) by the Banded 

 Water-snake, Nafriv fa-sciatus, and asks justly, "Is not this a fair case 

 of protective mimicry?" 



There should never be any difficulty in distinguishing these imitators 

 from the poisonous species they mimic, with tlie specimens in hand, for 

 the absence or the presence of the " pit " would at once settle the 

 question. Very often the slayer of the serpent deems it a religious duty 

 to immediately put his heel to its head and crush it out of all recogni- 

 tion. In such cases the tail may serve as a distinguishing character, 

 for in the hog-nose snake, Heterodon, and in the water snake, Natrix, 

 the large scales covering its under side are divided on the middle line, 

 while in the venomous Copperhead and Water Moccjisin the greater 

 majority of these subcaudals are undivided. The accompanying fig- 

 ures (figs. 33,34) show this distinction, and the heads of the harmless 



Mimicry in Sqakes. Amer. Naturalist, vii, Dec 1873, pp. 747-748. 



