m 



between the eye and nostril — to whicJ* our " Mapepire ^'ananu" 

 (Lachesismuta) and " Mapepire Balsain"(7yo^Aro7J5ar?-oa;) also belonj^. 

 The most curious thing about a rattle snake is the appendage to its tail. 

 "This appendage," as Mr. Quelch says, "consists not of a series of 

 rings, as is popularly suppoted, but of several hollow, three lobed 

 pieces, packed into one another in such a manner that the 

 anterior large lobe of each piece-covers the two smaller lobes of 

 the piece in front it." All the members of this family are very 

 venomous. 



After having thus told you to what family our Rattler 

 belongs I shall now give you some of his personal history. He 

 is generally coiled up in one corner of his I ox, but not always as 

 you see him now, for he is now on the qici vive and is nervous at 

 seeing so much movement about him. When he is alone and 

 quiet he assumes his " comfortable" position, as I call it ; i.e. he coils 

 ill larger circles and relaxes all the muscles of his body in such 

 a v/ay that he becomes quite flat ; but, unless he is about to 

 change his skin, and in consequence does not see very well, or is 

 not approached with precaution, it is rare I catch him in this 

 T)osition as he is very sharp and at once lets me know I am seen 

 by the sharp whirring noise he makes with his rattle, which he 

 keeps up as long as I move about the room. His appetite I am 

 glad to say is good, for he eats well. His diet consist of mice and 

 half grown rats v.hich he kills by means of his venom. When 

 I first had him he would not feed before me, but now he is 

 getting more civilized and does not mind if there are spectators. 

 At the same time he never loses t^ight of them. All the mice 

 and rats that I have seen him kill survived his bite from a few 

 seconds to 3 minutes. Mice he usually holds in his mouth until 

 they are dead and then sv/allows them. On one occasion he tried 

 to do this with a rat, but the animal being too strong for him got 

 away from his hold, but the deadly veriom soon laid him a corpse. 

 Since I have; had him he has eaten 47 mice and three half grown 

 rats. He has changed his skin four times viz; on the 11th 

 March, 13lh April, 21st May, and 13th July, as you see every 

 month. At each changing of his skin lie adds a segment to his 

 rattle, so that he now has seven segments coming under my obser- 

 vation with three. It is therefore quite a mistake to say as many 

 works on Natural History do say, that the number of rings in the 

 rattle correspond with the age of the snake, generally understood 

 in years, though it might be taken as a criterion of its age in 

 months, but a most uncertain one, as the rattle constantly meets 

 with accidents. Up to now the segments have gradually in- 

 ci-eased in size, a sign that the snake has been Vrell fed, for, if it 

 were the reverse the rattles would decrease in size, an indication 

 that the growth of- the rattle depend!? on the amount of food 



