ORDER OPHIDIA. 343 



But even among those who have the good fortune to 

 escape from death, there are few who do not retain during 

 life some infirmity, a sorrowful remembrancer of the fatal 

 accident which they have experienced. Swellings, periodical 

 aches, weakness or paralysis of the part, accompany them 

 even to the tomb. 



All the species of crotali, whose country is well known, 

 come from America, and it has been remarked that the 

 individuals of this genus have diminished in number, in 

 proportion to the increasing population of that mighty 

 continent. At present in those parts, in the neighbourhood 

 of the sea, few are found which arrive to any great size. 

 To the religious respect in which they were held by the 

 savages, who regarded the death of one of these serpents a 

 public calamity, has succeeded a hatred so inveterate, that 

 their heads have been set at a price in many settlements. 

 They are accordingly become so rare, that M. Bosc says, 

 that in the neighbourhood of Charlestown he saw but six 

 or seven individuals, of the larger species, in the course of 

 a year. 



Bartram informs us that he has seen some rattle-snakes as 

 thick as a man's thigh, and more than six feet long, and that 

 he has heard that in the early period of the settlement of 

 Georgia, they have been observed of seven, eight, and even 

 ten feet in length, and eight inches in diameter. 



In those parts of North America, where the cold com- 

 mences to be sharp, and the winter is rigorous, the crotali 

 pass some time in a lethargic state near the source of rivers, 

 in covert places, where the frost cannot reach them. Many 

 of them are often found together in the same hole, along 

 with toads in a similar situation. They are also to be met 

 with in the same state under masses of sphagnum^ which 

 grow in marshy soils. It is always before the autumnal 

 equinox, and after they have changed their skin, that they 



