24 Scientific Society op San Antonio. 



In the Crotalus family, the young snakes are quite vicious 

 shortly after birth. I encountered a very young rattlesnake some 

 years ago along a ravine at the Leona, which was only nine 

 inches long and very vicious. It was found rolled up, and was 

 beautifully striped, and on disturbing it, it showed signs of fight 

 at once, waving its tail upwards and striking viciously at the 

 stick held near its body. After killing it, the two main poison 

 fangs, resembling a cat's claw, were found to be fully developed. 



Regarding the habits and peculiarities of the kingsnake 

 (Elaps fulvius) the specimen seen in our photo collection was 

 killed in the valley of San Geronimo, northwest of San An- 

 tonio. It was beautifully striped with vermillion red, jet black 

 and orange-yellow colors ; was about two and a half feet long 

 and void of extra poison fangs after examining its mouth parts. 

 Perhaps some particular species of that beautiful snake are sup- 

 plied with grooved fangs, and are more dangerous than others 

 of the same genus. I recollect that many years ago a profes- 

 sional friend of mine, the late Dr. O. Grube, of New Braunfels, 

 related a fatal case to me of a boy who was bitten by one of 

 these coral snakes and I find in the report of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, U. S. National Museum, by Prof. Edward D. Cope, 

 the following valuable notes in the chapter relating to Elaps 

 fulvius : "Few people know or believe that it is poisonous, it 

 looks so harmless, and as a consequence they catch it and 

 handle it rather roughly; the snake gets angry, bites, and a hu- 

 man life is endangered. I know personally of such a case. A 

 Swede at Oakland, Orange county, found an Elaps, and because 

 of its beautiful colors he caught it and tried to put it into a 

 bottle of alcohol. The snake bit him, but the wound was not 

 large, and as it did not swell, he did not care much about it at 

 first. After a while he was taken very sick, asked for a physi- 

 cian, and drank whiskey, but it was then too late. He died the 

 next morning, about twelve hours after the snake had bitten 

 him. During the last hours he was unconscious, but before 

 that he suffered most excruciating pains. I have heard of sev- 

 eral other cases of boys dying from an Elaps bite." 



In other cases people have been bitten by an Elaps fulvius 

 without suffering from it in any way, but I suppose that in 

 such cases the Elaps had not been able to inject any poison into 

 the wound, as it has a rather small mouth. However that may 



