The Poisonous Snakes of Texas. 
33 
the angle of the month. A second band starts on the plate in advance 
of the superciliary, and crossing the anterior orbitals, expands till it 
involves the seventh, eighth and ninth upper labials. Interval between 
the first two stripes dark brown. There are also indications of a second 
vertical light bar in front of the nostril, and two below the pit. Rostral 
dark yellowish, lighter in the margin. 
Number of ventrals (gastrosteges), 169; of subcaudals (urosteges), 
32; scale rows across body, 27. (Stejneger, “Poisonous Snakes of North 
America.”) 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 
I have read nothing which records Pro fate adamanteus from Texas. 
My own observations (which cover fifty years), prove that this species 
was rather numerous thirty years ago in the timbered belts along the 
poast region. I have found it in the counties of Harris, Matagorda, 
Lavaca, Jackson, Victoria and Calhoun. It was known among ranchmen 
.and cowboys as the timber rattlesnake, on account of its preference for 
river bottoms, to distinguish it from the variety, Crotalus air ox, which 
prefers the open country. 
HABITS. 
It prefers dense shade and moisture, hence is most frequently found 
in river bottoms. It associates with Crotalus atrox. I have found them 
hibernating in the same den in the winter, and I have found them 
together in the summer. Their general habits are the same as Crotalus 
, atrox, under which head see remarks. 
CROTALUS ADAMANTEUS ATROX, B. and G. 
(“The Texas Rattlesnake.”) 
Plate VII. 
DESCRIPTION. 
“Head triangular; plates on head; two anterior frontals (internasals) 
in contact; between these and the superciliaries (supraoculars), on side 
of the crown, two imbricated plates; space inclosed occupied by smaller 
scales; superciliaries (supraoculars) bordered by a row of larger scales; 
the anterior much largest. Three rows of scales between labials and 
suborbitals; labials sixteen above, first, fifth and seventh largest; fifteen 
below, first and third largest; dorsal row twenty-five to twenty-seven; 
two exterior rows smooth ; on the tail three to six half rings. Color yel- 
lowish brown, with a continuous succession of dorsal lozenges, sometimes 
truncate before and behind; intervals all narrow. A single transverse 
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