Original Observations on Reptiles and Insects of Texas. 13 



During a hunting trip a few years ago, in company with Dr 

 Withers, at the Leona, nine miles west of San Antonio, we 

 came across a monstrous-looking rattlesnake, loudly rattling its 

 erect tail, and in its large open mouth it had a full grown cotton- 

 tail rabbit, swallowed up to the shoulders. The reptile lay 

 fully stretched out in an open space between jungles of cacti 

 and Spanish dagger plants, its rattling tail elevated high up 

 from the ground, and its eyes glittering fiercely. At close 

 range we shot this reptile and put it in a box which we hap- 

 pened to have along, and in coming back to town a photograph 

 of the snake, with rabbit still in its mouth, was taken, just as 

 seen in this photo collection. Besides this the snake had two 

 prairie rats in its abdomen, noticed when Dr. Withers had the 

 skin of the snake prepared by a local snake dealer. It is a beau- 

 tifully striped skin, of the "Crotalus adamanteits" species, I be- 

 lieve, five feet long. I will take pleasure in showing it to you 

 afterward. 



Regarding the peculiar "warning signal" of some poisonous 

 reptiles, especially the Crotalidae, it is not universally known, 

 not even by some of the expert naturalists, that the female rep- 

 tile especially in approaching danger, warns its young offspring 

 to seek shelter in the mother's mouth and throat! But such is 

 really the case — in the rattler as well as in the moccasin snake. 

 I am in possession of an interesting letter from a renowned En- 

 glish naturalist and author on "serpents of England," who 

 wrote to me the following lines some years ago : 



"Probably you have heard that in those regions of England 

 where the adder abounds, the people there positively claim that 

 the adder mother swallows its young during approaching dan- 

 ger to protect them. But to my own knowledge this has nevei 

 been verified, nor have I had occasion to prove it through oth- 

 ers. Lately, though, some newspaper article of yours came into 

 my possession in which this was actually observed in the rattle- 

 snake. I would thank you very much for further information ; 

 as far as the adder is concerned, it never has been proven." 



This letter of Prof. G. Leighton (of Grossmont, England) . 

 I answered with the remarks that not alone the crotalus, but 

 also the moccasin species, and perhaps others, warn theii 

 young of approaching danger, and that it also is not generally 

 known, even to some of the scientists, that the rattlesnake mother 



