80 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 
they abound.* The pig is an excellent auxiliary in obtaining this 
result. In the western and southern States of North America, when 
a field or farm is infested by these poisonous reptiles, it is usual to 
put a sow with her young brood there, and the snakes, it is said, will 
soon be destroyed. It appears that owing to the fatty matter which 
envelops the body of this animal it is safe from the venomous bite. 
Besides, it likes the flesh of the snakes, and eagerly pursues them. 
According to Dr. Franklin, when a pig sees a rattlesnake, it smacks 
its jaws, and its hairs bristle up; the snake coils itself up to strike 
its enemy; the pig approaches fearlessly, and receives the blow in 
the fold of fat which hangs upon the side of its jaw. Then it places 
a foot on the tail of the snake, and with its teeth he begins to pull 
his enemy to pieces, and eats it with evident enjoyment.t The pig 
is not the only animal employed to destroy rattlesnakes. Dr. Rufz 
de Lavison, who has long resided in the French Antilles, and who 
has since been manager of the Jardin d’Acclimatation, of Paris, has 
published a highly interesting work, in which he relates the very im- 
portant services which certain birds, especially the Secretary-bird, or 
Serpent-eater (imported from South Africa), render by destroying 
rattlesnakes in the West Indies. We have said that the Crotalide 
are some of the most dangerous of any Snakes; let us mention some 
facts which show the frightful power of their venom. A Crotalus, 
about three feet in length, killed a dog in about fifteen minutes, a 
second in two hours, and a third in about four hours. Four days 
after it bit another dog, which only survived thirty seconds; and 
another, which only struggled four minutes. Three days afterwards 
it bit a frog, which died at the end of two seconds; and a chicken, 
which perished at the end of eight minutes. 
An American, named Drake, arrived at Rouen with three live 
rattlesnakes. In spite of the care which he had taken to preserve 
them from cold, one of them died. He put the cage which con- 
tained the other two near to a stove, and excited them with a small 
stick, to assure himself that they were alive and in health. As one 
* Tt is currently believed in parts of the United States, that if a ring of the - 
bark of the white ash tree be placed around a camp, that these reptiles will not 
cross it. 
+ Dekay, in his ‘‘ Natural History of New York,” remarks that it is a popular 
belief that hogs are particularly destructive to rattlesnakes; but neither their 
bristly hide nor their thick teguments afford them perfect immunity from the 
stroke of this reptile. I was informed by a respectable farmer that he lost 
three hogs in one season by the poison either of the Copperhead or Rattlesnake, 
—ED. 
