g8 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



body. Little girls, whose arms and necks were generally bare, are 

 especially liable to this unwelcome but seemingly painless annoy- 

 ance. One mother of a family assured me that in summer-time she 

 always had to examine the children carefully on their return from 

 bush errands to rid them of these pests, as the little folks seemed 

 unconscious of the insect intrusion. 



The books most available many years ago to persons contem- 

 plating emigration to Canada, gave the assurance that no apprehen- 

 sions need be entertained on the score of noxious reptiles. It was 

 therefore with surprise that, on settling in the County of Lincoln, 

 Niagara District, we learned from old residents that venomous 

 rattlesnakes still infested the borders of swamps and the banks of 

 streams, and were not to be recklessly intruded upon. Although, 

 fortunately, during the summer of our residence there, we never 

 interviewed one of these dangerous ophidians in the course of our 

 frequent rambles, it was demonstrated that they were far from extinct 

 by the number of people one met, who had the almost indestructible 

 memento, the caudal rattle of the horrid reptile, in their possession, 

 and kept it to exhibit to all who took an interest in such objects. 

 A majority, too, of the inhabitants were very reluctant to travel 

 along the forest paths after nightfall, and warned us to be very 

 circumspect under certain conditions, and to be on the qui vive for 

 the admonitory rattle. There was also a widely entertained belief 

 that the hog was a formidable enemy of the rattlesnake, and would 

 ultimately be an important factor in its extinction in that district. 

 Such a behef seems to be well founded, for more than once we have 

 seen the hog, when grazing, suddenly become aware of the presence 

 of a garter or a milk snake, when he would become obviously 

 enraged, and the chase and speedy destruction of the ophidian 

 would result. 



What chiefly renders the rattlesnake difficult of extinction in 

 certain parts of the west is the presence of rocks on the earth's 

 surface, whose fissures and crevices afford winter shelter and harbor, 

 from which expulsion is an impossibility. 



Another surprise to British settlers, on their advent to this 

 country, was to observe the large proportions and girth of the com- 

 mon black snake of North America when compared with the com- 

 mon meadow snake of England and Scotland. During the hot 



