164 TRAVELS THROUGH LOWER CANADA: 
mordy found between three and four feet in 
length, and as thick as the wrist of a large man. 
The rattlesnake is much thicker in propor¬ 
tion to its length than any other snake, and it 
is thickest in the middle of the body, which 
approaches somewhat to a triangular form, 
the belly being flat, and the back bone rising 
higher than any other part of the animal. The 
rattle, with which this serpent is provided, is 
at the end of the tail; it is usually about half 
an inch in breadth, one quarter of an inch 
in thickness, and each joint about half an inch 
long. The joint consists of a number of little 
cases of a dry horny substance, inclosed one 
within another, and not only the outermost of 
these little cases articulates with the outermost 
case of the contiguous joint, but each case, even 
to the smallest one of all, at the inside, is con¬ 
nected by a sort of joint with the correspond¬ 
ing case in the next joint of the rattle. The 
little cases or shells lie very loosely within 
one another, and the noise proceeds from their 
dry and hard coats striking one against the 
other. It is said, that the animal gains a fresh 
joint to its rattle every year; of this, however, 
I have great doubts, for the largest snakes are 
frequently found to have the fewest joints to 
their rattles. A medical gentleman in the 
neighbourhood of Newmarket, behind the 
Blue mountains in Virginia, had a rattle in his 
