THE DIAMOND RATTLESNAKE. 187 



of these he saw capture the rattler. The black snake 

 crawled rapidly around its intended victim, as the lat- 

 ter lay coiled. The head of the rattlesnake turned at 

 the same time, its eye all the time fixed upon its 

 enemy. Finally it seemed to grow dizzy and its head 

 fell down, when the black snake immediately sprang 

 to the attack and swallowed its victim head first. 



More probable is the following account of the hab- 

 its of the diamond rattler by Dr. Einar Loennberg, 

 who has studied for a number of years the reptiles 

 found in eastern Florida: "In the interior of the 

 country the diamond-backed rattlesnake is scarce, but 

 not so along the coast and on some of the Florida 

 keys. In the neighborhood of Ozona, in Hillsboro 

 County, I heard of the killing of nine rattlesnakes 

 within two weeks in October, 1892. It evidently pre- 

 fers the neighborhood of the water, and is a good 

 swimmer, not afraid to cross over from *key ? to 

 'key.' If not too often disturbed this species is slow 

 and does not rattle unless offended. I saw one in 

 the latter part of October in the pine woods near 

 Toronto, Orange County, coiled up under a palmetto 

 bush. A dog following us went up and sniffed at 

 him, with his nose hardly a foot from the snake. We 

 called the dog back and a man ran forward with a 

 whip and struck the snake several times. After the 

 second blow the snake began to rattle and made him- 

 self ready to strike. This shows plainly the slow na- 

 ture of the snake. In other cases they are more easily 



