328 ANTIQUITIES OF THE ST. FRANCIS, WHITE, 
Around the neck, also in red pigment, is a serpent which is shown extended 
on the same plate with the bottle. To any one familiar with the markings on the 
diamond-back rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus) there can be no question that this 
serpent was intended to be represented on the vessel. 
But here an interesting point arises. The diamond-back rattlesnake, found 
chiefly in Florida, though its habitat extends along the Gulf coast westward to the 
Mississippi (some of these snakes having been found near New Orleans), is practi- 
cally unknown in Arkansas, though one specimen is reported to have been met 
with there. Even if this single doubtful case was correctly reported, presumably 
its occurrence was in southern Arkansas, while the region whence the bottle bear- 
ing the serpent came is well to the northward in that State. 
The rattlesnake known to Arkansas is the banded rattlesnake (Crotalus horri- 
dus), and one of these snakes was killed by us at the Rose Mound on St. Francis 
river. The markings on the banded rattlesnake have nothing in common with 
those on the diamond-back variety. 
In connection with this bottle, with its pictured diamond-back rattlesnake, 
three hypotheses can be formulated : 
1. That the bottle was brought from regions to the southward: though we 
consider this most unlikely, as the decoration on the remainder of the bottle is of 
the type found in the St. Francis region and not of the kind found farther south. 
2. That as the aborigines were constantly traveling, and often moving from 
place to place, the bottle was made in northern Arkansas by some one familiar with 
the diamond-back rattlesnake of more southerly regions. 
3. That the Crotalus adamanteus inhabited northern Arkansas at the period 
when the bottle was made, but since has disappeared from so northern a territory. 
Vessel No. 61. This vessel, a bowl 11 inches in maximum diameter, has pro- 
jecting upward from one side what is intended to represent the neck and head of 
some animal whose teeth are roughly indicated by imprints in the clay. On the 
opposite side of the bowl is a conventional tail. This type of bowl with animal 
head and tail is common enough in the Middle Mississippi region, though vessels in 
which the head is hollow and contains small objects that rattle when shaken, as is 
the case with the vessel under description, are only exceptionally found there. 
Vessel No. 7. A graceful bottle, coated with brilliant red paint, having a 
globular body and a slender neck. A projecting basal support had been broken 
from this vessel and the area of union with the body had been carefully smoothed 
to permit the vessel still to retain an upright position. 
Vessel No. 54. This bottle, of black ware, had originally possessed three 
globular supports at the base, one or all of which having been broken off, the bottle 
had been treated in a way to enable it to continue in use. 
Vessel No. 43, a compound form ‘resembling three pots joined, though interiorly 
there is but little separation of the bodies. Traces remain of where probably an 
' Leonhard Stejneger. “Тһе Poisonous Snakes of North America." Бері. U. S. National 
Museum for 1893, p. 435. 
