The Poisonous Snakes of Texas. 
37 
inches long, crawling over her and coiled aronnd her. In another corner 
was coiled another large female with young ones about half the size of 
the first batch crawling over her. The young negro exclaimed, “For 
God’s sake look, she is eating them.” A look showed the tail of one 
of the smaller brood disappear down its mother’s throat. We began on 
them with sticks, and soon killed the whole lot. A dissection then fol- 
lowed. Snake number one was poor, but in normal condition, and had 
twelve young ones around her. Snake number two was poor also, and 
had three of her young ones in her stomach; one was dead, having been 
killed by a blow on the mother, the other two were alive ; there were seven 
young ones besides the three taken from the mother’s stomach ; the dried 
egg cases were present, showing that they had not been hatched very long. 
The mother snake also had a bunch of wire worms in the abdominal 
cavity, near the anus. 
After June the Crotalus becomes sluggish, and as fall approaches it 
becomes very fat, lazy and good natured. A favorite habit of this snake 
in midsummer is to crawl to the edge of the bay, towards sundown, and 
enjoy the cool breeze and spray, and incidentally to watch for prey. 
They hunt nearly altogether by lying in wait for their prey. Selecting 
a place beside a path, and coiling itself as near out of sight as possible, 
it waits; any number of animals may pass, and if not suitable for food, 
they can pass in safety; but a rabbit, rat, or bird, will fall a victim. 
Once in the Navidad River bottom in Jackson County, I was watching 
the antics of a fox squirrel ; it was running up and down the trunk of a 
leaning live oak tree, barking furiously; each time it would descend a 
few feet lower than before; its entire attention was given to some object 
at the foot of the tree, in some moss and sticks ; at length descending to 
some two feet from the ground, a very large rattlesnake suddenly struck 
it on the back of the neck ; with a squeak the squirrel fell to the ground, 
and when I arrived on the spot, it was dead, and the snake had hold of 
it and was ready to swallow it. On two occasions I witnessed a mocking 
bird lose its life by a rattlesnake. In each case the bird had a nest 
nearby, and the snake was coiled in the weeds ; the bird began darting at 
the snake, uttering its cry of anger; continuing to dart, it finally came 
within reach, when the snake by a quick spring struck it dead. Things 
of this kind, in my judgment, are what have given color to the fallacy 
that snakes can charm their prey. 
Place a rattlesnake where it cannot escape, whip it into a frenzy with 
a switch, and it will bite itself, sinking the fangs deep into the flesh. I 
once thought that they intended to commit suicide, but later experiments 
proved that their bite was harmless to themselves, and that in their blind 
fury they would bite themselves by accident. 
When a rattlesnake is getting ready to shed its outer skin, it retires to- 
