POISONOUS SNAKES OF NORTH AMERICA 405 



Kansas, Indian. Territory^ Louisiana, all the way down to the pine 

 woods north of Lake Pontchartiain, wlieie Dr. (1. Kohn informs nie 

 that it is scarce, however. In Texas it seems well represented east of 

 the one hundredth meridian and north of the twenty-ninth parallel. 



Habits. — It is .'ipreed by almost all observers that the Copperhead, or 

 Upland Moccasir, Chunk-head, Deaf Adder, or Pilot Snake, as it is 

 called in various localities, is a ninch more vicious animal than the 

 Kattlesnake; not only because it strikes without giving the warning of 

 the rattle, th(tngh it is sometimes known to attemi)t this by quickly 

 vibrating the tail against some hard and dry objects, but also because it 

 is of a much more aggressive nature. However, although considerably 

 quicker of motion than the Rattler, it is a comparatively slow snake, 

 and as Dr. Weir Mitchell has shown that its poison in proportion to the 

 quantity is less virulent than that of the Rattlesnake, its bite is less 

 dangerous, and as it but seldom exceeds 3 feet in length,* it is a much 

 less terrible animal than generally supposed. 



Dr. H. C. Yarrow has reported quite an interesting series of cases of 

 poisoning from bites of copperheads (Am. Journ. Med. Sc. (u. s.), 

 LXXXYii, 1884, pp. 422-435). Of the many cases recorded in the medi- 

 cal journals he had only found one fatal case, viz, that of a 6-year-oId 

 boy,a]though some of them were very severe, particularly the one which 

 came under his own observation, a case the more remarkable as the 

 snake was very small, "not over 14 inches long." It is plain from the 

 symptoms, however, that the case owed but very little of its severity 

 to the venom injected by the snake, and it is an excellent example of 

 how complicated such cases may be, and how difdcult it is in cases both 

 of recovery and death to say how nnich is due to the activity of the 

 venom and how much to other circumstances. 



Dr. R. E. Kunze (Am. N'atural., xvil, 1883, pp. 1229-1238) thinks 

 that the Copperhead does not strike from a regular coil, like the Rattle- 

 snake, but that its effective blow is delivered when the middle of the 

 body is thrown into long, almost rectangular curves, and Lhe head held 

 only slightly elevated above the ground. 



S. Garman, as quoted by Dr. Hay, having studied the Copperhead in 

 captivity, states that they usually eat the prey as soon as it is dead and 

 even before it ceases to struggle. Sometimes lively mice would elude 

 two or three strokes, and this would seem to throw the snake into an 

 ecstacy of excitement. They would not eat fishes. 



The Copperhead produces living young like the other crotalids, the 

 average number apparently varying between seven and nine. State- 

 ments often seen in newspapers referring to female copperheads with 

 an enormous number of young ones having been killed are due to aeon- 

 fusion of this species with other snakes. 



* A large male killed this year n-^ar Washington, D. C, and presented by Dr. J. 

 W. Blackburn to the Museum, measured, when fresh, 38 inches (about 965 nun.), 

 while a lemale killed near the same place last year was only about 1 inch shorter. 



