1887] The Massasauga and its Habits. 215 
said against it. Dr. Elliott Coues has concluded that “the 
actual result of its use as a menace in self-defence is the reverse 
of beneficial to the serpent, since the sound serves to direct and 
provoke attack from all the enemies which the animal has reason 
to fear.” We are led to wonder how the rattlesnakes have been 
enabled to maintain themselves in the struggle for existence. 
In spite of the possession of this organ, thus pronounced to be 
of no use to them, and constantly betraying them into the hands 
of their enemies, the rattlesnakes have succeeded in diffusing 
themselves over most of the western hemisphere, in adapting 
themselves to many varied conditions, and in producing many 
species and an excessive number of individuals. On the other 
hand, the Copperheads and Cottonmouths, in possession of all 
the advantages enjoyed by the rattlesnakes in the way of poison- 
glands and fangs and relieved of the so-called disadvantage of 
the rattle, have neither extended their range so widely, nor de- 
veloped into so many species, nor perhaps become so abundant 
in individuals. 
Nothing can be more certain than the fact that the rattle is used 
chiefly when the snake is alarmed or angry. The whirr then 
serves to warn an approaching enemy that it is coming into col- 
lision with a rattlesnake, and not with something else. This is 
done for the special benefit of the snake. It is not benevolent, 
but intensely selfish. It is evidently extremely solicitous for its 
precious store of poison and its battery of fangs, without which it 
would fare slenderly in its endeavors to get a living ; and if it can 
induce its antagonist to withdraw, the snake will have saved its 
stores and have escaped other possible results of a pitched battle. 
This warning must have been very efficient with most animals. In 
the eastern United States there were no native species of the hog 
tribe to devour snakes. To what extent deer are accustomed to 
destroy rattlesnakes we do not know. It appears to me that the 
rattlesnakes had more to fear from the numerous buffaloes that 
roamed over the greater part of the continent than from any ani- 
mals that made direct war onthem. The serpents must have been 
in frequent danger of being trodden upon by these, and to have 
attempted a war on a herd of large animals would have been 
useless. But through the simple device of sounding the rattle, 
each animal as it approached would be~ warned of the presence 
of the snake and would probably be induced to give it abundant 
