418 [OcroBER, 
The transverse bars are frequently broken up, particularly in front, and the 
larger portions form perfect chevrons. 
Vhe young are yellowish, with irregular dusky marks on the back and sides, 
the larger ones being transverse ; none of them, however, are serrate, as.in the 
older animals ; instead of a rattle there is a small button at the end of the tail. 
Grows to the length of 8 feet; one of this size had 9 rattles, whilst another of 
5 feet had 14. Specimens of the rattles of these snakes have been shown con- 
sisting of thirty joints; these are fictitious, and made by taking the separate 
‘‘ grelots”’ from different rattles and joining them together, for they may be fitted 
in sueh a manner that the deception cannot be perceived. Had If not seen this 
artificial junction made in my presence, I should have considered these long 
‘* erepitacula”’ as really natural. 
THE OAK RIDGE RATTLE SNAKE. 
Supra niger vel fuscus, serie dorsali regulari rhomboidum magnorum, concate- 
-natorum, limbo albo, disco fusco, variegato; subtus flavescens, nigro variegatus 
et maculatus. 
Hab. In provinciis australioribus Caudisona terrifica Laurenti, p. 93. Cro- 
talus rhombifer Daudin, vol. v. p. 325. Id.-Latreille, vol. ili. p. 197. C. ada- 
manteus, Palisot de Beauvois, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc., vol. iv. p. 368. Id. Hol- 
brook, vol. ii. p.17. C.durissus Pennant, Arct. Zool. Suppl., p.90. Id. Shaw, 
vol. iii. p. 333, who confounds it with the C. durissus; of both species furnish- 
ing very good figures. Lacépéde, vol. il. p. 396. 
Above black or brown, with a row of large black or dusky rhomboidal spots 
on the back, which on the limb or margin are whitish or yellowish, and on the 
dise mixed with brown; these rhomboids are connected together, so that the 
animal appears to have two yellowish lines running down the back and mutually 
crossing each other from right to left at certain intervals ; they gradually become 
less distinct towards the tail until they vanish, some of the posterior ones 
changing into transverse bands. The sides of those which are brown are marked 
with two rows of dusky spots; those which are black, of course, must want these 
spots. Tail with alternate bars of black and yellowish, or black and dusky. 
Body beneath yellowish, mixed and spotted with dusky. Head very large, spot- 
ted with paler, with two yellowish and three black or dusky stripes on each side, 
sometimes entirely black, the top covered with small scales resembling coarse 
shagreen. Rostral plate pen'angular, wider and rounded at the base; supernasal 
plates two, small, a larger quadrangular space between the rostral and nasal; 
behind the rostral is a large plate on each side, immediately behind these are 
two others; the palpebre are large, transversely striate; antocular plate large. 
Abdominal scuta 170 to 178; subcaudal 23 to 32, and 4 pair of scales at the base 
of the rattle. 
Length 6 feet with 6 rattles. 
I come now to the conclusions which are to be drawn from the precede re- 
marks~ and first, the so-called horridus, the Boiquira and Cascarella of many 
authors, is the durissws of Linneus. I place little reliance on references to en- 
graved figures, as in many instances they are made in a very careless manner. 
Thus,we find Linnzus quoting a figure in Seba’s Museum,which does not tally with 
descriptions of other authors quoted by himself; and Laurenti, an author in other 
respects very cautious and accurate, refers to a figure in Catesby, of a serpent 
with transverse bars, as representing one with rhombic spots. Weare driven, 
it appears to me, into this dilemma: either the name of horzidus must be stricken 
out from acknowledged species, or given to that one which is called by so many 
durtssus, or, we must call this last one horridus, and thus have the species with 
two distinct names. For, as I have observed elsewhere, there can be no doubt 
of the animal, so well described by both Liunzus and Laurenti, being durissus. 
Secondly, as for the other species, which Palisot de Beauvois called adamanteuws, 
and which cthers have named rhombifer, &c., whether it was known to Linneus 
cannot now be proven, although, for my own part, I have no doubt but that he 
confounded it with the South American species, or it may be the drycnas. which 
had lost its color. See Amenitatis Academica, vol. i. p. 501, where he says 
