86 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
known than those of its more common congener. 
Unlike the brusli turkey, the Mallee fowl is a 
quiet and inoffensive creature, and our speci¬ 
men shares a compartment at the Ostrich House 
with a varied assortment of companions. 
Mammals and Reptiles 
Bp Raymond L. Ditmars 
Raiding a Snake Den. —Our first real collect¬ 
ing trip was scheduled for the 7th of May and 
was for the purpose of obtaining a series of 
rattlesnakes, copperhead snakes and black- 
snakes for shipment to the Antwerp Zoological 
Gardens, in Belgium, in re-establishing their 
reptile collection, and for our own exhibition 
series. This trip was to a “snake den,” about 
125 miles from New York, having a direct 
southerly exposure, thus bringing the serpents 
out early. Ordinarily they would have emerged 
several weeks earlier and be well scattered bv 
early May. We ascended the mountain on an 
ideal day and found the reptiles emerging from 
the crevices in the rocks. We captured a large 
series of rattlesnakes, copperheads, blaeksnakes 
and serpents of other species. Some of the 
blaeksnakes were of exceptional size, ranging 
in length to seven feet and over. They repre¬ 
sented two species, the “racer” and the moun¬ 
tain blacksnake. 
Many Snakes But Few Bites. —In our col¬ 
lecting trips for the capture of poisonous snakes 
and the discovery, year after year, of “dens” 
where these reptiles hibernate in large numbers, 
the writer has sought all possible information 
about records of accidents in the neighboring 
areas. It appears that some of the rattlesnakes, 
leaving the den after the spring emergence and 
after a few days basking in the stimulating sun, 
wander into the lower meadows or the farm¬ 
lands, and are encountered and killed. It ap¬ 
pears certain, however, that the greater number 
move away into the rocky portions of the moun¬ 
tains and are never met by human observers. 
Where they spend their time,—unless they are 
nocturnal and hide by day,—is a mystery, as 
the writer for years has tramped these forests 
and the sight of a rattler is the rarest of events. 
Occasional specimens are seen on the barrens or 
in the open spots among the low huckleberry 
bushes, but these examples and those that wan¬ 
der into the meadows beneath the mountain are 
but a small portion of the large number that re¬ 
turn each autumn to the hibernating ledge or 
den. And as to the danger of humans from the 
wanderings of these serpents, our queries elicit 
remarkable information. At the base of the 
great den visited this spring is a long stretch 
of farmland that has been owned through sev¬ 
eral generations of one family, since the days 
immediately following the American Revolution. 
The living descendants of this family, particu¬ 
larly intelligent people and thoroughly versed 
in the history of the region, have never heard of 
an accident from a rattlesnake in this locality, 
or the surrounding mountains. At the base of 
another mountain, below a ledge on which we 
captured forty-four rattlesnakes in a few hours 
and noted as many more that escaped into the 
crevices, is a town of a few hundred inhabi¬ 
tants. In the history of the town there was one 
record of rattlesnake bite and this resulted 
fatally. It occurred to an intoxicated alien who 
was pulling down a stone wall to obtain building 
materials for a foundation. He heard the snake 
sounding its warning in the Avail and a com¬ 
panion warned him to keep his hands away from 
the stones, but he cursed such superficial beasts 
as rattlers and finally placed his hand squarely 
on the serpent itself—and then stubbornly re¬ 
fused to see the village doctor. 
Sea Snakes. —For the second time in fifty 
years, an actual sea serpent is on exhibition in 
New York. We have, in fact, on exhibition at 
the present time, two of these creatures, bril¬ 
liantly ringed with hlack and yellow and pro¬ 
vided with a flattened tail, exactly like a paddle 
in outline. Owing to many sensational stories 
about so-called sea serpents, our visitors may 
be disappointed in the size of these specimens. 
They are in a glass tank about three and one- 
half feet long, provided with sea water. The 
snakes are about a yard in length. There are 
about sixty distinct species of strictly marine 
sea snakes, all with paddle-like tails. The larg¬ 
est attain a length of eight feet. These crea¬ 
tures swim in the open ocean and are seen a 
thousand miles from land. They come to the 
beaches, to the higher tidal pools, where the 
young are born. All of them are very poisonous 
and represent close allies of the cobra group 
that through evolution have taken to the sea. 
Their food consists entirely of fish. Only one 
other living specimen ever reached the United 
States and that was exhibited in the Aquarium 
opened by the world’s great pioneer showman, 
the late P. T. Barnum. The specimen lived 
about six months and is now preserved in the 
American Museum of Natural History. The 
specimens in our Reptile House were captured 
on the beach of New Caledonia and reached us 
through the perseverance of Ellis S. Joseph, 
who lias provided us with many rare and inter¬ 
esting specimens from remote regions. 
