VIPERINE GROUP. 
241 
from them. The most extraordinary peculiarity connected with the common 
species is its habit in the colder regions of North America of collecting in enormous 
numbers for the winter sleep. In some districts the snakes used to assemble in 
hundreds, or even thousands, from all sides to sleep in the ancestral den, some of 
them, it is said, travelling distances of twenty or even thirty miles. Huddled 
together in masses for the sake of warmth, the serpents passed the winter in a 
state of more or less complete torpor, until the returning warmth of spring once 
more started them to spread over the country. When rattle-snakes were abundant, 
annual or biennial hunts used to take place at these dens; the fat of the 
slaughtered reptiles being used as a valuable supply of oil. Catlin tells us how, 
DIAMOND AND SOUTH AMERICAN RATTLE-SNAKES (^5 nat. size). 
when a boy, he once assisted at one of these hunts at a place known as Rattle¬ 
snake Den, whence the snakes used to come forth on to a certain ledge of rock in 
swarms. At one time, he says, there was a knot of them “ like a huge mat wound 
and twisted and interlocked together, with all their heads like scores of hydras 
standing up from the mass,” into which he fired with a shot-gun. Between five hundred 
and six hundred were killed with clubs and other weapons, but hundreds more escaped 
to the den. Fortunately one large one was taken alive, and was made the means of 
destroying the rest, a powder-horn with a slow fuse being applied to its tail, and 
the reptile allowed to crawl back to the cave, where a loud explosion soon told the 
tale of the destruction that had taken place. 
The most interesting point in connection with rattle-snakes is the use to which 
the appendage from which they derive their name is put,—for use it must surely 
vol. v.— 16 
