CROTALUS HORRIDUS. 



THE SECONDARY CHARACTERS. 



CROTALUS. No sternum nor vestige of shoulder. No third 

 eyelid nor tympanum. Jaw so arranged as to permit a wide 

 opening of the mouth ; the two branches are not soldered, 

 and can separate laterally ; the tympanal bone, to which they 

 are attached, is itself suspended to another bone articulated 

 to the cranium ; the two upper maxillary bones preserve also 

 their mobility ; besides the teeth of the jaws, there is a double 

 range in the palatine arches. 



THE SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



CROTALUS HORRIDUS. A gland placed under the eye se- 

 cretes a poison, and discharges it by a canal, whose extrem- 

 ity opens into a duct or gutter channelled in certain teeth of 

 the upper jaw called movable fangs. The animal at will can 

 conceal them in a fold of the gum ; besides these, there are in 

 the upper jaw two ranges of palatine teeth. Rattles at the 

 extremity of the tail, as many as seven or eight, rarely ten. 

 A small rounded pit behind each nostril. 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



The RATTLESNAKE, Orotalus horridus, is one of the most 

 deadly of poisonous serpents. It is sometimes found as thick 

 as a man's leg. and six feet in length, but more usually from 

 four to five feet long. Till the discovery of the Western hemi- 

 sphere, the knowledge of these serpents was concealed from 

 the rest of the world, and naturalists then first beheld with 

 amazement a reptile of the most fatal nature, furnished, as if 

 by a peculiar institution of Providence, with an instrument 

 capable in general of warning mankind of their danger in too 

 near an approach. There are several species, two of which 

 are well distinguished, viz. the Crotalus horridus (or banded 

 rattlesnake) of the United States, and the Crotalus durissus 

 of Guiana. The former is of a yellowish-brown color, marked 

 throughout its whole length with several transverse and some- 

 what irregular fascice of deep brown, and from the head to 

 some distance down the neck run two or three longitudinal 

 stripes of the same color; the head is large, flat, and covered 

 with small scales, the rest of the upper parts with moderately 

 large oval ones, all furnished with a prominent line down the 

 middle; the under parts are of a dingy yellowish-brown color, 

 marked here and there with numerous dusky variegations 



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