Suddenly the horses refused to advance, and without any visible reason to me; but the friend who was driving us recognised, in what seemed to be merely a little dry twig in the middle of the road, nothing less than a young rattlesnake.
Now, to see a rattlesnake and to hear its rattle had been the great ambition of my prairie sojourn, and as my friend threw the reins to his wife and alighted to deal a death-blow, I entreated him to spare it for a few minutes only that I might examine and hear the as yet unfamiliar appendage.
Alas! the creature had no rattle. ‘It is too young: there is only the button,’ as my friend called the rudimentary promise of one. I profited by the occasion, however, to have a good though disappointed look, not unmixed with contempt, at the juvenile Crotalus, being so very small and unworthy the ceremony. A foot or so in length, it began to make its escape into the long grass, when by one quick stamp of his heel our champion disabled it.
Then, throwing it into a pool of water, he remounted, and the horses fearlessly proceeded.
A fully developed rattle of a
rather small snake (life size).
A few days after this, to compensate my disappointment, I was presented with a ‘full-grown rattle’ from a Kentucky snake, and here it is.
Asking how he knew it was ‘full grown,’ my friend explained that the links being all of a nearly uniform size, proved that the snake had also attained a certain growth during the development of that rattle. This will be more readily comprehended on seeing the next specimen, which is the rattle of a Mexican snake during early and rapid growth, and a very perfect one, presenting no flaw or friction; proving that it has not been subject to very long or very rough usage.
A very perfect rattle
(natural size).