202 
THE SAVAGE WORLD. 
oughly fixed, but is supposed to be one year. The one to which I now refer 
was the property of a physician in the little village where I was born and reared, 
and was of course an object of great curiosity to every one in town, notwith¬ 
standing the fact that rattlesnakes in that vicinity were then no special rarity. This 
snake had taken no food during its captivity, probably because its cage was too 
small to permit much motion. The process of giving birth occupied the greater 
part of one day and a night, so that I actually witnessed the birth of only two 
of the seven brought forth. Directly after the young were delivered they crawled 
vigorously about their circumscribed quarters, and I remember that on being 
teased with a stick one of them opened its mouth and assumed an attitude of 
defence, though it did not bite the stick. 
The Fer-de-lance (Trigonocephalus lanceolatus) is found in lower Mexico 
and thence 
southward t o 
Brazil, where it 
is very numer¬ 
ous, and annu¬ 
ally causes the 
death of more 
laborers on 
plant ations 
than any other 
reptile. Its 
venom is proba¬ 
bly no more 
powerful than 
that secreted by 
the rattlesnake, 
but being very 
much greater 
in size, it in¬ 
jects into a 
wound three 
times the 
amount of vi¬ 
rus that is de¬ 
posited by the rattlesnake, hence its power for mischief is doubly or trebly 
great. Added to its intense venom is a most aggressive disposition, and 
making its attacks without warning, no one may escape its malignancy who comes 
within its path. The fer-de-lance also uses its venom to stupefy its prey, as it 
invariably kills the rats and other rodents upon which it feeds by biting before 
swallowing. It is a voracious feeder and somewhat compensates for its deadly 
ravages by the great number of rats it destroys. 
The Copperhead (Ancistrodon contortrix ) is another deadly habitant of 
North America, being found everywhere in the eastern half of the United States. 
The name by which it is best known has been given on account of its bronze- 
colored head, and dull orange hue on the body, alternating in blotches of bronze 
and dirty white. It is very venomous, though its bite is not so dangerous as 
the rattlesnake. It is frequently found under sidewalks in small villages, hav- 
COPPERHEAD. 
