rl44 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



The old and young of the species differ in color; the old are 

 dull brownish in color, with a heavy thick body and a rather 

 broad head like a rattlesnake's. But the young are slender, 

 vividly colored, and the head is not conspicuously broad. 



The nests are generally holes under large stones or in banks, or 

 occasionally in disused springs, basins or cellars. 



The tail of the copperhead, being armed with a stiff, horny 

 point (a primitive rattle), makes, when the snake vibrates it in 

 the dry leaves or grass, a noise like that produced by a cicada, 

 when the latter is pinned to the ground or a tree by a digger 

 wasp and beats its wings about. 



The copperhead lives principally on toads and the terrestrial 

 and arboreal frogs and lizards, but the writer never actually 

 caught it feeding. 



Dr K. E. Kunze (quoted by Stejneger in his paper on poison- 

 ous snakes) thinks that the copperhead does not strike from a 

 coil, but from a curved, twisted attitude it often assumes. This 

 can be confirmed so far as the annoyance of a stick or cane pro- 

 duces a natural strike, for it seldom coils up when thrown on 

 the defensive, but contracts suddenly into a close, zigzag posi- 

 tion, very much like any other snake; and, when in this attitude, 

 it can cast itself at any object very effectively. 



Crotahis horridus (Linn.) 



Rattlesnake 



in the report of the geologist 1 it is stated that no rattlesnakes 

 have been seen in the northern counties of New Jersey for 50 

 years. This must be an error, probably due to the lack of cor- 

 rect local information; for rattlers are still met with in both 

 states (New Jersey and New York), and specially in Rockland 

 county, along the line of the West Shore Railroad, and the New 

 Jersey & New York Railroad. For this I can personally vouch. 



These dangerous snakes are specially numerous in the level, 

 cultivated area lying to the west of the Hackensack river, in 

 Haverstraw, Monsey, Suffern and other towns. The case of a 

 farm-hand finding a nest of venomous snakes in an old cellar 

 near Haverstraw has already been mentioned. 



X N. J. Geol. Sur. 1890-92. Zoology, 2:648. 



