368 THE POPULAR 
CAPTURING A DIAMOND RATTLER. 
villages would be in other states : 
Camp Hammock, Hickory Ham- 
mock and Jack Hammock are 
familiar names in that region. 
They serve as camping places 
for men, and as shelters from 
the noonday sun for cattle. 
Some of them, when entered, are 
veritable fairy-lands: from the 
branches of the huge live oaks 
are festooned great masses of 
beautiful, gray, hanging moss, 
while here and there is stationed 
a stately palmetto, with its great 
head of green leaves, each leaf 
nearly twice as tall as a man. 
From the lower growth may pro- 
ject the gaunt, bare branches of 
a dead oak, on which a group 
of turkey-buzzards and carrion 
crows are likely to be seen. 

SCIENCE MONTHLY 
The much smaller ground 
rattlers are also numerous on the 
prairie, but, on account of their 
small size, one to two feet instead 
of six to eight, they are not feared 
as are the diamond rattlers. 
The monotony of the prairie is 
broken by an occasional clump of 
trees, known as a “ hammock” 
(probably derived from “ hum- 
mock”). These hammocks are 
sometimes composed merely of a 
small group of palm trees, called 
“cabbage palmettoes” from the 
edible, cabbage-like core at the 
tip; or they may cover several 
acres and contain moss-hung oaks 
and a dense undergrowth. The 
hammocks serve as landmarks and 
milestones for the traveler and 
cowboy, and many of them are 
named, just as streams, hills or 

A Group OF CARRION CROWS, 
