^58 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO J 73-1. 



to the hinder parts of the hare, which all this time had been towards the snake. 

 There he made a survey all over the hare, raising part of his body above it, 

 then turned off, and went to the head and nose of the hare, after that to the 

 ears, took the ears in his month one after the other, working each apart in his 

 mouth, as a man does a wafer to moisten it; then returned to the nose again, 

 and took the face into his mouth, straining and gathering his lips sometimes by 

 one side of his mouth, sometimes by the other. At the shoulders he was a 

 long time puzzled, often hauling and stretching the hare out at length, and 

 straining forward first one side of his mouth, then the other, till at last he got 

 the whole body into his throat. We then went to him, and taking the twist- 

 band off from my hat, I made a noose, and put it about his neck. This made 

 him at length very furious; but we having secured him, put him into one end 

 of a wallet, and carried him on horseback 5 miles, to the house where we 

 lodged that night. The next morning we killed him, and took the hare out of 

 his belly. The head of the hare was begun to be digested, and the hair to fall 

 off, having lain about 18 hours in the snake's belly." 



" Again, in my youth I was bear-hunting in the woods above the inhabi- 

 tants; and having straggled from my companions, I was entertained at my re- 

 turn with an account of a pleasant rencounter between a dog and a rattle-snake, 

 about a squirrel. The snake had got the head and shoulders of the squirrel 

 into his mouth, which being rather too large for his throat, it took him up 

 sometime to moisten the fur of the squirrel with his spittle, to make it slip 

 down. The dog took this advantage, seized the hinder parts of the squirrel, 

 and tugged with all his might. The snake on the other side would not let go 

 his hold for a long time; till at last, fearing he might be bruised by the dog's 

 running away with him, he gave up his prey to the dog. The dog eat the 

 squirrel, and felt no harm." 



" Another curiosity concerning this viper, which I never met with in print, 

 I will also relate from my own observation. My waiting-boy being sent abroad 

 on an errand, brought home a rattle-snake in a noose. I cut off the head of 

 this snake, leaving about an inch of the neck with it : this I laid on the head 

 of a tobacco hogshead. Now these snakes have but two teeth, by which they 

 convey their poison ; and they are placed in the upper jaw, pretty forward in 

 the mouth, one on each side. These teeth are hollow and crooked like a 

 cock's spur : they are also loose or springing in the mouth, and not fastened in 

 the jaw-bone, as all the other teeth are. The hollow has a vent also through 

 by a small hole a little below the point of the tooth. I'liese two teeth are 

 kept lying down along the jaw, or shut like a spring-knife, and do not shrink 

 up as the talons of a cat or panther: they have also over them a loose thin film 



