RATTLESNAKE 
759 
This creature sometimes grows to the length of eight feet, and 
weighs between eight and nine pounds. The colour of the head is 
brown, and the eye red ; the upper part of the body of a yellowish 
brown colour, transversely marked with irregular broad black lists. 
The rattle is of a brown colour, composed of several horny mem- 
branous cells, of an undulated pyramidical figure. These are arti- 
culated within one another in such a manner, that the point of the first 
cell reaches as far as the basis of the protuberant ring of the third, 
and so on ; which articulation being very loose, gives liberty to the 
parts of the cells that are enclosed within the outward ring, to strike 
against the sides of them, and so to cause the rattling noise which is 
heard when the snake shakes its tail. This is the most inactive and 
slow-moving of all the snakes, and is never the aggressor, except in 
what it preys upon. Mr. Catesby is of opinion that no remedy is yet 
discovered for the bite of this animal. He had frequent opportunities 
of seeing Indians who had been bitten by it, and always thought that 
those who recovered were cured more through the force of nature, or 
by reason of the slightness of the bite, than by the remedies used. 
He says, the Indians know their destiny tlie moment they are bitten ; 
and if the bite happens to be on any of the large veins, they apply 
no remedies, knowing them to be entirely useless. He believes the 
report of the fascinating power of this serpent, though he never had 
an opportunity of seeing it. 
Mermaid or Merman. 
This is a sea-creature, frequently talked of, supposed to be half 
human, and half a fish. Though naturalists doubt of the reality 
of mermen or mermaids, there are many testimonies of their existence 
given by historians. In 1187, as Laray informs us, a mermaid was 
fished up on the coast of Suffolk, and kept by the governor six months, 
Jt bore so near a conformity with man, that nothing seemed wanting 
but speech. One day it made its escape, and, plunging into the sea, 
w'as never more heard of. In 1430, after a huge tempest, which broke 
down the dikes in Holland, and made way for the seainto the meadows, 
&c. some girls of the town of Edam, in West Freezeland, going in a 
boat to milk their cows, perceived a mermaid embarrassed in the 
mud with a very little water. They took it into their boat, and 
brought it with them to Edam, dressed it in women’s apparel, and 
taught it to spin. It fed like them, but never attempted any thing 
like speech. Some time afterwards it was brought to Haerlem, where 
it lived for some years, though still shewing an inclination to the 
water. Parival relates, that they had given it some notion of a Deity, 
and that it made its reverences very devoutly whenever it passed by 
a crucifix. Dalicesde Hollande. In 1560, near the island of Manar, on 
the west coast of Ceylon, some fishermen brought up, at one draught 
of a net, seven mermen and mermaids, of which several Jesuits, and 
among the rest, F. Hen. Henriques and Dimas Bosquez, physicians 
to the viceroy of Goa, were witnesses. The physician, who examined 
them with a great deal of care, and made a dissection of one, asserts 
that all the parts, both internal and external, were perfectly confor- 
