[883I] Concerning Venomous Snakes 



The first and biggest rattler I ever saw at large, and the Bad 

 only one by which I was ever placed in danger, I came upon neighbors 

 in 1878 near Falls Church, Virginia, not ten miles from Washing- 

 ton. Kneeling to drink at a fine spring in the woods, I suddenly 

 caught sight of the reptile — Crotalus horridus — coiled on the 

 moss just above the spring, in excellent position to strike. 

 Since then I have met a good many rattlesnakes of two other 

 species, Crotalus oregonus in the foothills of California, Crotalus 

 lepidus in the prairie-dog holes of New Mexico and occasionally 

 elsewhere in the South and West. 



Other venomous American snakes are the Copperhead — 

 Agkistrodon mocasen — the Black or Water Moccasin — • 

 Agkistrodon piscivorus — and the Coral Snake or coralillo — 

 Micrurus fulvius — of Mexico. 



The Copperhead is a small, rattler-like reptile — devoid of 

 rattles, however — with the head of a bright copper color. 

 It frequents damp thickets along streams. It is rare in the 

 North, though I once caught one in Bean Blossom Creek near 

 Bloomington; in its body were four small fishhooks, repre- 

 senting probably as many boys who had hurriedly parted 

 company with it. 



The Black Moccasin, larger than the Copperhead and with- 

 out the red, is found in dark wooded streams of the farther 

 South. This is very venomous, but not often "met up with." 

 Meanwhile the common, harmless but ill-tempered, rough- 

 scaled water snakes — Matrix — which abound along all 

 Southern rivers, are all commonly called moccasin and held in 

 dread by the inhabitants; and the blow snake or spreading 

 adder — Heterodon — an evil-minded and demonstrative ser- 

 pent without fangs, also common in the South, is everywhere 

 regarded as dangerous. 



The vicious Coral Snake, brilliant red belted with black, is King 

 colored almost exactly like the handsome and beneficent King '^'"^^^ 

 Snake of the Sierra Nevada — Lampropeltis — so useful a ^^^^^ 

 destroyer of rattlers. The coralillo' s fangs are fixed, those of ^^^^^ 

 the rattlesnake tribe depressible, but erected in striking. At 

 Xico near Jalapa I once found a coralillo which had just been 

 killed. Determined not to lose an interesting specimen, I 

 carried it through the village streets, thereby attracting much 

 attention. 



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