of North Carolina. 147 



uing of the Blood after the manner that Runnet congeals 

 ^lilk when they make Cheese. 



These Snakes cast their Skins every Year, and commonly 

 remain near the Place where the old Skin lies, these cast 

 Skins are frequently pulverised, and given with good success 

 in Fevers, so is the Gall mixed w4th Clay, made up in Pills, 

 and given in pestilential Fevers and the Small Pox, for which 

 it is accounted a noble Remedy, and a great Arcanum, which 

 only some few pretend to know, and to have had the first 

 Knowledge and Experience of for many Years; so are the 

 Rattles good to expediate the Birth, and no doubt but it has 

 all those excellent Virtues that the Vipei- is indued with. 



The Ground Rattlesnake , but why so improperly called, 

 I know no Reason for, because it has no Rattles, and only 

 resembles the Rattle-snake a little in colour, but is darker, 

 and not so large, seldom exceeding a Foot or sixteen Inches 

 in length, and is reckoned one of the most poysonous and 

 worst of Snakes, and is said to be the latest Snake we have 

 that returns to it's Hole in the fall of the Leaf. It's Uses 

 and Virtues are unknown to any in these Parts, except the 

 Indians. 



The Horn-snakes, so called, from a Horn growing in their 

 Tail like a Cock's Spur, with which they strike and kill 

 whatever they wound with it, except a speedy Remedy be 

 applied. They are like the Rattle-snake in colour, but a 

 little lighter. They hiss exactly like a Goose when any thing 

 approaches them. This Horn in their Tail is all the Weapon 

 they have with which they strike and destroy their Enemy, 

 for they never bite as the Rattle-snake and other Snakes do. 

 They give warning to such as approach their Danger by Hiss- 

 ing. They are a very venemous Snake, hardly admitting 

 of a cure from the Indians : yet the most effectual Method 



T^ to 



