Holbrooke records that once in New York State two men in three days killed 1104 rattlesnakes on an eastern slope of Tongue mountain.
Many hairbreadth escapes during these adventures form the subjects of exciting stories in the domestic annals of American settlers, but are becoming more and more histories of the past. In many localities where formerly rattlesnakes swarmed, they have almost totally disappeared or have become very rare. Probably with their friends the Indians, they will in time become wholly extinct.
New species have, however, been discovered by the explorers of the new Western States and in Tropical America, where, in the sparsely-settled districts, they still come into houses as of yore, and where the rattlesnake campaign is still an annual sport for the venturesome pioneers. In 1872, two thousand of the species Crotalus confluentus were killed in the Yellowstone Region.
One other question in the history of the rattlesnake—‘Does it swallow its young in times of danger?’ or more correctly speaking, ‘Does it receive its young into its œsophagus as a place of safety?’—is considered in chap. xxvii.
Other discussions of modern times, both in assemblies of zoologists and through printed correspondence, have been on the rattle, when and why vibrated, how affected by damp, etc., all claiming a place in rattlesnake history, but considered elsewhere in this work. A whole volume might be written on this rattling tail, evolved out of the scant materials of the sixteenth century into the prolific matter of the nineteenth. You can scarcely take up one of the many scientific journals of the United States, in which zoology forms a part, without finding mention of a rattlesnake. Within a very few years the subject has been popularized in our own zoological journals also.
In connection with the venom come of course the cures, concerning which the experiments of Dr. Weir Mitchell form a notable point in rattlesnake history. But serpent venom and its remedies, so far as lies within my province to discuss them, come also in a special chapter.
In concluding this one, I will roughly enumerate the species of rattlesnakes now best known. We have seen that formerly only one or two different kinds were noticed, and the subsequent multiplication of species is due almost as much to science and to a more careful observation of the distinguishing features, as to the discovery of absolutely new ones.
The frequent Exploring Expeditions fitted out by the United States Government for Geographical Boundaries, Pacific Railroads, Geological Surveys, etc., with always a zoologist on their Staff of Scientific Men, have added much to our knowledge of natural history; and in the Reports and Bulletins of these may be sifted out information in every branch of Science. Thus in Crotalus chronicles, our two original rattlesnakes have increased and are still increasing. In 1831, the late Dr. J. E. Gray, of the British Museum Natural History Department, enumerated six genera and eleven species belonging to America. In 1860, Dr. Weir Mitchell gave about twenty species as belonging to two genera only, and distinguished by their head scales.
As this book has no scientific pretensions, and as its aim is rather to interest a large class of readers than systematically to instruct the few, I will not attempt a list of genera and species with all their perplexing names, if indeed a true list of all the now known species even exist. They are distinguished by the shields or plates on the head, and by the varying tails. Some have rattles so small as barely to entitle them to the name of Crotalus.
Then, again, a new name is frequently adopted by the discoverer of a new feature; and a number of American genera, minus a rattle altogether, are included among the Crotalidæ, an anomaly which will be presently explained. Here we have to do with only the rattlesnake proper, viz. the ‘Viper with the Bell,’ Vipera caudisona of Tyson, and the Crotalus of Linnæus.