CROTALUS DURISSUS. 13 
approaching, he found it perched on the back of a large Black-snake, in the act of 
swallowing a young bird. The snake was killed, and the old bird flew away.” 
Thus it is the serpent seeks the nest, or young birds; it is seen by the parent, 
who darts upon him in an agitated manner—makes a plaintive cry; it flies away, 
and again returns to attack the robber, with beak and wings, until he is driven 
off; or, “what not unfrequently happens, she falls a victim to maternal solicitude” 
—and thus ends the fascination. 
} 
If the Rattlesnake has other “charming powers,” they lay in the horror of its 
appearance, or in the instinctive sense of danger that seizes a feeble animal fallen 
suddenly into the presence of an enemy of such a threatening aspect—rather 
than to any mysterious influence not possessed by all venomous or ferocious 
animals upon their weak, timid, and defenceless prey. 
In Catesby’s time, when the country was less settled, Rattlesnakes were 
common enough; and he relates stories of their entering dwelling-houses, and of 
one having even shared his bed, undiscovered; but his accounts are so strange at 
the present day, that we must suppose him deceived by the servants of the house 
where they are said to have occurred in February, a season at which the 
Rattlesnake is never abroad. At present it is rarely met with, keeping far from 
all settlements, where its greatest enemy, the hog, is to be found. Even 
sportsmen are seldom under any apprehension on their account; yet I have more 
than once known dogs killed by them when the hunters have penetrated into 
woods at a distance from settlements. 
GeocrapnicaL Disrrisution. The Crotalus durissus has the widest range of 
all our Rattlesnakes, being found in nearly all parts of the United States. Kalm 
saw it in lat. 45°, near Lake Champlain, and I have seen specimens from the 
borders of the Gulf of Mexico, and as far west as Red river; and Dr. Pickering 
informs me that Say met with it in lat. 40°, on the Mississippi. 
