RATTLESNAKE. Uropiophus durum*. 



immediately after it changes its skin and before it goes into winter quarters. There 

 is, however, another opinion prevalent among the less educated, which gives to the 

 Rattlesnake the vindictive spirit of the North American Indian, and asserts that it 

 adds a new joint to its rattle whenever it has slain a human being, thus bearing on 

 its tail the fearful trophies of its prowess, just as the Indians wear the scalps of their 

 slain foes. 



The joints of this remarkable apparatus are arranged in a very curious manner, each 

 being of a somewhat pyramidal shape, but rounded at the edges, and being slipped within 

 its predecessor as far as a protuberant ring which runs round the edge. In fact, a very 

 good idea of the structure of the rattle may be formed by slipping a number of thimbles 

 loosely into each other. The last joint is smaller than the rest, and rounded. As was 

 lately mentioned, the number of these joints is variable, but the average number is from 

 five or six to fourteen or fifteen. There are occasional specimens found that possess more 

 than twenty joints in the rattle, but such examples are very rare. 



When in repose, the Eattlesnake usually lies coiled in some suitable spot, with its head 

 lying flat, and the tip of its tail elevated in the middle of the coil. Should it be irritatea 

 by a passenger, or feel annoyed or alarmed, it instantly communicates a quivering move- 

 ment to the tail, which causes the joints of the rattle to shake against each other, with a 

 peculiar skirring ruffle, not easily described but never to be forgotten when once heard. 

 All animals, even those which have never seen a Rattlesnake, tremble at this sound, and 

 hy to get out of the way. Even a horse newly brought from Europe is just as frightened 

 as the animal that has been bred in the same country with this dread Serpent, and at the 



