262 Say on Herpetology, 



Shaw. Sometimes the dots are wanting on the neck and near 

 the cloaca ; and in one aged individual, the intermediate line 

 occurred double, and confluent on the throat. 



Coluber fulvius, this species is said by Daudin to be closely 

 allied to his C. coccineiis, notwithstanding the difference in 

 plates and scales. But it is certainly very distinct by other 

 characters, and strikingly so in its perfectly annular black and 

 red bands ; the latter are margined with yellowish and spotted 

 with black. A specimen has 224 plates and 32 scales, total 

 length 21 inches, length of the tail ly^^ inch. The coccineus 

 has the under part of the body whitish, immaculate. The 

 fulvius seems to belong to the genus vipera ; it has the fangs, 

 but not the orifice behind the nostril, which communicates 

 with the reservoir of venom, so conspicuous in the crotali, &c. 

 Ophisaurus ventralis. The tail of this snake not only 

 breaks in pieces when struck with a weapon, but portions of 

 it are thrown off at the will of the serpent. This singular 

 fact I witnessed in Georgia. This is one of the many which 

 are called horn-snakes. A tip of the tail of one af them was 

 once brought to me as having been taken from a recently 

 withered tree, which the bearer assured me was destroyed 

 by the insertion of this formidable instrument, and it was not 

 without considerable difficulty he was convinced of the inno- 

 cence of the tail, and of having been the dupe of a knave. 

 There seems to be a peculiar character in the mode of imbri- 

 cation of the scales of this species, each one of these at the 

 lateral edges, passes beneath the lateral scale on one side, and 

 over the edge of the opposite one. It has been described 

 under five different generic names, and four different specific 

 ones. 



The Crotali do not gain a single joint only to the rattle an- 

 nually, as is generally supposed. They gain more than one 

 each year, the exact number being probably regulated in a 

 great measure by the quantity of nourishment the animal has 

 received. Rattle-snakes in Peale's Museum have been ob- 

 served to produce 3 or 4 in a year, and to lose as many from 

 the extremity during the same time. Hence it is obvious, that 

 the growth of these curious appendages is irregular, and that 



