AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
find it, in the advance of cultivation and agriculture pecu- 
liar to modern Hurope, and to this country in particular; 
by which impenetrable forests and woods, that afforded 
shelter to, and nurtured such animals, have been cut 
down and cleared; extensive swamps, in which they were 
also to be found, have been drained; and the haunts of 
venomous reptiles have, in every direction, been disturbed 
or destroyed by the hands of the cultivator. 
Though venomous serpents differ from each other in 
magnitude, and in some of their external characters; yet 
they all possess in common, certain leading features by — 
which they may be distinguished from the other classes 
which are not poisonous. 
In the yenomous the head is flattened, scaly, and large 
in proportion to the body; the snout is rather broad; the 
neck is thick; the skin is of a dirty hue, and less varie- 
gated in its colour, and the body does not taper towards 
the tail inso fine a point. But the leading feature of dis- 
crimination is in the formation of the upper jaw; the ve- 
nomous serpent having two or more fangs attached to it, 
projecting out on each side beyond the other teeth, with 
which they inflict their poisonous wounds. 
These fangs have, at their base in the upper jaw, avery 
small sac or bag immediately attached, which serves as a 
receptacle to the poison that has been secreted by a glan- 
dular apparatus, situated at the back part of the head, and 
behind each ear, and which by means of tubes or canals 
running through the roof of the mouth, is conveyed into 
the sac to be ready for use. The fang itself to which the 
sac is attached, is tubular; having an orifice on its outward 
extremity large enough to admit of the fluid being ejected 
by the pressure of the surrounding muscles, when the ani- 
mal is excited to bite. 
The poison contained in the bag, is a yellowish, viscid, 
tasteless liquid, very small in quantity, which, injected 
into the blood vessels, proves frequently fatal: but which 
may be taken into the mouth and stomach without any 
danger. Indeed it is a common practice with the Viper 
eatchers, to suck the wound when the bite has been in- 
flicted, and we have witnessed the same practice in the 
West Indies among the negroes when bitten by any ve- 
nomous animal. 
When the sac is ruptured, (as may be effected by draw- 
ing the teeth of the animal,) the power of poisoning is 
destroyed; and of this, the Viper catchers avail them- 
selves, by irritating the animal to seize a piece of cloth, 
which the Viper grasps so closely, as easily to admit of 
the tooth being extracted. 
In Bingley’s Animal Biography, the name of a gentle- 
man is mentioned, who saw a Rattlesnake, in which the 
fangs had been extracted, that was so completely tamed, 
Magi 
125 
‘¢that it would turn its back to be scratched with the 
same delight, that a cat displays when rubbed before a fire; 
and would answer to the calls of the boys, and follow them 
like any other domesticated animal.” In the same man- 
ner, the Cobra de Capella is tamed in India, and the Viper 
in England. 
The flesh of all these animals, so far from being poison- 
ous, is extremely nutritive; and among savage nations, is 
gale on the Rattlesnake, and cook it as others do eels; and 
considered a great delicacy. ‘* The American Indians re- 
the peccary, the vulture, and other ravenous birds, feed 
on its flesh.”? The negroes in the West Indies often make 
snakes a part of their diet; and the use of the Viper has 
long been well understood in England. 
The Crotalus, or Rattlesnake, is peculiar to America, 
and is found in almost every part of it, from the Straits of 
Magellan to Canada. It reaches its greatest magnitude, how- 
ever, and assumes its most violent character, in the warmer 
American latitudes, where humidity mostly prevails, and 
where cultivation has made the least progress. It is dis- 
tinguished from other serpents, by the number of its scales 
on the abdomen and the under surface of its tail; in having 
a double set of poisonous fangs; and by the tail terminating 
in a large sealy appendage, consisting of several articulated 
horny processes, which move and make a rattling noise. 
The Rattlesnake is divided into five species, each differ- 
ing in their external character, size, and malignancy; of 
which the Crotalus. Horridus is by far the largest and 
most formidable. They are all, like the Viper, vivipa- 
rous; that is, they produce their young alive, and com- 
pletely formed, generally about twelve in number; and, 
like that animal also, they receive them into their mouth, 
when alarmed or threatened with danger. 
The Crotalus Horridus, or Bandied Rattlesnake, is 
from five to eight feet in length, and its body is about the 
circumference of the human arm; the back being of an 
orange tawny mixed with blue, the belly of an ash co- 
lour inclining to the aspect of lead; while the head is dis- 
tinguished by a scale, hanging like a pent-house over 
each eye. But the most curious part of its external confor- 
mation is its tail, from which the animal derives its name. 
This consists of a kind of rattle, formed of a certain num- 
ber of loosely connected joints or articulations, commenc- 
ing when the animal is about three years old, and adding 
one each succeeding year; so that they generally judge of 
its age by the number of articulations of its tail, which, in 
some instances, have amounted to nearly forty. 
This apparatus, when taken from the tail, bears a resem- 
blance to the curb chain of a bridle, and is composed of a 
certain number of thin, hard, hollow bones, loosely con- 
nected tc each other; so that when the animal shakes its 
