547 
In color, it is brownish or reddish, with about 28 dark dorsal blotches, 
besides lateral ones and half-rings on the tail; sometimes the color is 
nearly uniform black. Vertical plate longer than broad, about equal to the 
occipitals; ventral plates 120 to 150; scales in 23 or 25 rows. Maximum 
length about 2 feet. 
10. Sistrurus catenatus (Rafinesque). 
PRAIRIE RATTLESNAKE. 
This species, known also as the Massasauga, is likely to occur in all 
prairie regions from Ohio to Minnesota and southward. In Indiana it is 
known only from the northern portions of the State. It is the only poisun- 
ous snake occurring about Lake Maxinkuckee. All the other species found 
in that region or elsewhere in horthern Indiana are entirely harmless. 
Formerly the Massasauga was abundant throughout this part of the State, 
but with the settling up of the country and the draining of the prairie 
grass-land and the marshes, it has become wholly exterminated in many 
places and practically so in many others. About Maxinkuckee, however, 
and elsewhere in Marshall County, it is far from extinct. It is apt to be 
found in any and all suitable places such as prairie meadows, about the 
borders of vanishing lakes, and in prairie marsh-ground anywhere. 
In May, 1891, when the spring meeting of the Indiana Academy of 
Science was being held at Lake Maxinkuckee, several specimens were 
caught by members in attendance, chiefly in marshy ground about the lake. 
About 1896 a young man on the eastern side of the lake was bitten on the 
leg by one. The leg remained swollen for some time and complete recovery 
Was very slow. On August 6, 1899, one was caught on Long Point between 
the Scovell and Walter Knapp cottages. It was 23 inches long and had five 
rattles. On August 3, 1900, one was killed two and one-fourth miles south 
of Arlington station. It was 18 inches long and had two rattles and a but- 
ton. Several weeks earlier, near the same place. a dog was bitten by one, 
without fatal results. On August 26 a small one was killed on the east 
side of the lake near the T. W. Wilson cottage. On the same day one was 
killed in a field on the Hawk farm south of Culver. It was about 2 feet 
long and had nine rattles. Another young individual was killed Septem- 
ber 3 on the east side, two and one-half miles southeast of the Maxwell 
cottage, and one with nine rattles was killed September 26, 1907, in a 
meadow on the Newman farm, four miles southeast of Culver. 
These are all the records we have of the occurrence of the prairie 
