CINCINNATI ZOO GUIDE 
SUMMER REPTILE CAGE 
I his is west of the Club House and usually contains several 
varieties of harmless snakes, such as the black snake, the coach 
whip snake, the garter snake, Say’s king snake, the pine snake, 
and the indigo snake. 
The snake family may be divided into three sub-classes — 
the vipers, which possess poison fangs, the harmless snakes, 
which do not possess poison fangs, and the boa constrictors, 
which, though their bite is non-poisonous, are almost as danger¬ 
ous as vipers, because they kill their foes and their prey by the 
constriction of their coils about the victim. 
Vipers have no teeth in the upper jaw except two long and 
poisonous fangs. The lower jaw is well supplied with teeth. Both 
jaws are feeble in action. In proportion to the neck, the head is 
large and very wide behind. To this class of vipers belongs the 
celebrated and dreaded fer-de-lance, also the rattlesnake, which 
is a native of America and which is embraced in the family 
Crotalidae . This is a word derived from the Greek and mean¬ 
ing “rattlers.” Moccasins and copperheads also belong to 
this family. They have two fangs grooved and fitted to dis¬ 
charge the liquid poison which lies in a sac at root of the fangs. 
The rattlesnake sometimes grows to be six feet in length. It 
has a horny protuberance on the end of its tail called a rattler. 
Its whirring noise gives warning of its presence. It is supposed 
that the sections into which the rattler is divided denote the 
age of the snake, but this is an erroneous belief. There are 
fifteen species of rattlesnakes. 
The Northern Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus). One of the 
most common of this dreaded species. 
The Diamond Rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus). Strictly a 
southern species, confined to the seaboard below the Carolinas. 
Its habits differ from the northern, particularly in the fact 
that it is found in damp, shady places. 
The Harmless Snakes. Found in summer in an outside cage 
near the Club House. There are quite a number of these to be 
found in America. One of the most common is: 
