VIPERINE GROUP. 



241 



from them. The most extraordinary peculiarity connected with the common 

 species is its habit in the colder regions of North America of collecting in enormous 

 numbers for the winter sleep. In some districts the snakes used to assemble in 

 hundreds, or even thousands, from all sides to sleep in the ancestral den, some of 

 them, it is said, travelling distances of twenty or even thirty miles. Huddled 

 together in masses for the sake of warmth, the serpents passed the winter in a 

 state of more or less complete torpor, until the returning warmth of spring once 

 more started them to spread over the country. When rattle-snakes were abundant, 

 annual or biennial hunts used to take place at these dens; the fat of the 

 slaughtered reptiles being used as a valuable supply of oil. Catlin tells us how, 



DIAMOND AND SOUTH AMERICAN RATTLE-SNAKES (^ nat. size). 



when a boy. he once assisted at one of these hunts at a place known as Rattle- 

 snake Den, whence the snakes used to come forth on to a certain ledge of rock in 

 swarms. At one time, he says, there was a knot of them " like a huge mat wound 

 and twisted and interlocked together, with all their heads like scores of hydras 

 standing up from the mass," into which he fired with a shot-gun. Between five hundred 

 and six hundred were killed with clubs and other weapons, but hundreds more escaped 

 to the den. Fortunately one large one was taken alive, and was made the means of 

 destroying the rest, a powder-horn with a slow fuse being applied to its tail, and 

 the reptile allowed to crawl back to the cave, where a loud explosion soon told the 

 tale of the destruction that had taken place. 



The most interesting point in connection with rattle-snakes is the use to which 

 the appendage from which they derive their name is put, — for use it must surely 



vol. v. — 16 



