On the Natural History of North America. £07 



tend to illustrate the history of this wonderful reptile. I 

 have found that its powers of ditrestion are very strong. 

 Even the bony fabric of the animals which it devours iSt 

 completely digested, or reduced to the state of a Huid mortar. 

 This I have several times observed. Great, however, as is^ 

 the faculty of digestion in this reptile, it is capable of living- 

 a very long time without any food, unless, perhaps, a small 

 quantity of water. One of my rattlesnakes lived, without 

 having ate one grain of any solid food, from the 28th of 

 April to about the Qth of March following. It then died; 

 but upon examining it I found it very fat. I have now twa 

 of these reptiles in mv possession. One of there has eaten 

 nothing since the middle of October last. The rattlesnake 

 tiheds its skin at least once every year. During the two 

 summers that I have been making observations upon tht^e 

 animals, the old ones have sited their skins only once each 

 year, viz. about the end of July. A young one, however, 

 shed its skin twice in the course of the year, and that with- 

 in five weeks. A rattle, or bell, is formed with each cast- 

 ing of the skin. It appears, therefore, that the full grown 

 reptile generally acquires one bell annually. But 1 have 

 elsewhere shown* that we cannot, with con<fidence, calculate 

 the age of the animal from the number of its bells. I have, 

 after much inquiry, ascertained the period at which these 

 reptiles copulate. The Indians are my authorities. They 

 assert that it is when the Indian corn {zea viays) is ia 

 flower; that is, about the lOlh or 13th of July, between 

 the latitudes of 39" and 41°. 



I have had a number of very fine drawirigs made to repre- 

 sent the anatomical structure of the crotalus. These draw- 

 ings it is my intention to have engraved, by some of the best 

 of your artists, for my Anatomy and Physiology of the Rat- 

 tlesnake; a work which I hope to publish in three or fbur 

 years. It will contain every thing I have observed, or have 

 been able to collect, relative to the structure, the functions, 

 the manners, &c. of the crotalus horridus ; together with 

 observations on some other species of the same genus, and 

 on various species of coluber, &c. all natives of the United 

 States. 



Perhaps no country of equal extent is richer in insects 

 than the United Stales. In no country is it an object of 

 more importance to attend to ihe history of these animals; 

 lor among them are enlisted some of the greatest enemies 

 to the labours and industry of man. The heats of our cli- 



* Sufiplement to ^. Memcir, &c. 



mates 



