A SHOSHONEE RATTLESNAKE MYTH. 91 



dusty road; moccasin* and massasaugaf creep from their "tangled fens" 

 upon hard banks or low-drooping limbs, along whose upper surface they 

 balance their rugged folds; while the copperhead crowns the bowlder at 

 the edge of the clearing with a brazen coil. 



There is a popular belief that the snake never eats or drinks during 

 the hot weather, but that this is wrong has been shown by many speci- 

 mens in confinement ; manifestly it must be, since only in summer can 

 it prepare itself for the long fast of winter hibernation ; while the 

 young must eat to nourish their growth. Dr. E. E. Kunze, of New 

 York, who kept a large rattlesnake in his office, and wrote an instruc- 

 tive history of it in Science News (1879), found it ate willingly about 

 twice a week, killing the living mice put into its cage and wanting two 

 mice for a meal, with perhaps an hour between them. Other men 

 have had difficulty in inducing their captives to eat at all ; they have 

 been known to live a year and a half without a mouthful. They must 

 have water to drink, however — a want they seem to feel keenly in a state 

 of nature, often invading door-yards and even houses in search of it when 

 the woods are dry. 



The most noteworthy incident, I fancy, in the career of little rattle- 

 snakes (as well as of other ophidian youngsters), is their occasional hasty 

 retreat into the stomach of the mother as a. temporary refuge — a fact 

 which I must ask you to' accept as proved, since I have not space to pre- 

 sent the abundant evidence substantiating this assertion, and which seems 

 to me thoroughly conclusive. 



There is a queer Shoshonee myth which some have thought was in- 

 spired by this snake-swallowing, but 1 cannot see that it ever had any T 

 thing more to do with it than with the well-known fact of sloughing 

 the skin, nor as much ; this is the myth accounting for the origin of 

 the echo, and it is as follows : 



Iowi, the Turtle Dove, was gathering seeds, and laid her babe down 

 while it slept. Wandering away at her work, a witch came, stole the 

 boy, carried him to her mountain home, stretched him into a man, and 



* Of this word there are a dozen spellings : it is the Eastern-Indian word for shoe, 

 and is said by Scheie De Vere ("Americanisms," p. 35) to have been given to the snake 

 because its markings are " like the black marks of wear and tear on the buff leather." 



f Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull, of Hartford, authority in these matters, writes me that 

 the spelling I have adopted is the .one chosen by him for the snake, though he uses mia- 

 sisaauga or messissauga for the Indian tribe from which the snake takes its name. This 

 tribe (Chippeways of Canada) is named from a locality—" the great outlet" of the lake. 

 Peter Jones ("History of the Ojibway Indians," p. 164) says mesmaga (pronounced by 

 the Ojibway Indians ma-sa-sau-gee) means "the eagle clan.' - 



