36 TRIGONOCEPHALUS PISCIVORUS. 



the character of his new visiters, and became perfectly quiet. Indeed I have often 

 received four or five of these animals in safety, after their having peaceably 

 travelled together a journey of fifty miles in the same box. The dread of the 

 fatal Water Moccasin has brought into suspicion several other snakes that live in 

 the same localities, as the Tropidonotus fasciatus, Tropidonotus erythrogaster, 

 &c., which are not only harmless, but really useful in destroying vermin. 



The food of the Water Moccasin is such fish as he can overtake, and few 

 exceed his velocity in swimming; and whatever smaller reptiles, as frogs, toads, 

 tadpoles, &c. that fall in his way. 



Geographical Distribution. The northern limit of the Trigonoccphalus pis- 

 civorus must, for the present, be set down as the Pedee river in North Carolina; 

 as to the southern and western, nothing positive can be said, only that the range 

 is extensive; I have received specimens from the Floridas, Alabama, and from the 

 banks of the Mississippi, and have no doubt that they may be found for a certain 

 distance up the tributaries of this great river, as Professor Troost has observed 

 them in Tennessee. 



General Remarks. This animal was certainly first made known to naturalists 

 by Catesby, who calls it the Water Viper, and adds, that it is commonly called in 

 Carohna "the Water-Rattle; not that it hath a rattle, but because many are as 

 large, and coloured not unlike the Rattlesnake, and their bite is considered as 

 fatal." Lacepede placed it among the Crotali, but improperly, as it is without 

 rattles, which are the distinctive characters of that genus; their place is supplied 

 in this by a small horny point, about half an inch in length. This excrescence, 

 though perfectly harmless, has, as Catesby says, "been considered of dreadful 

 efficacy by the credulous vulgar, not only to kill men and other animals, but even 

 to destroy plants and trees." 



This is doubtless the Trigonocephalus tisiphone of Cuvier, as he first refers to 

 Plate xliii. of Catesby, which is certainly the Trigonocephalus piscivorus, or 



