When Lawson travelled, setting out in December 1700, as an appointed ‘Surveyor-General’ of the newly settled colony of North Carolina, very little was known of the natural history and productions of those parts, and he relied on the native tribes for much of his information.
His work was dedicated ‘To His Excellency, William Lord Craven, Palatine; The Most Noble Henry, Duke of Beaufort; The Right Hon. John Lord Carteret; and the rest of the True and Absolute Lords, Proprietors of the Province of Carolina in America.’
‘As a Debt of Gratitude the Sheets were laid at their Lordships’ Feet, having nothing to recommend them but Truth, a Gift which every Author may be Master of if he will.’
With ever so praiseworthy an intention of telling ‘the Truth,’ Lawson did not possess the scientific knowledge to enable him to guard against error. Neither did Colonel Beverley, who wrote a History of Virginia, published in London in 1722, and who perpetuated the ‘stinging tail.’ ‘There is likewise a Horn Snake, so called from a Sharp Horn it carries in its Tail, with which it assaults anything that offends it, with that Force that, as it is said, it will strike its Tail into the Butt End of a Musket, from whence it is not able to disengage itself.’
A few years later, Catesby went over the same ground as a professed naturalist, and afforded a more rational account of this ‘horn snake,’ to which he assigned the name of Vipera aquatica, ‘Water viper,’ or ‘Water rattlesnake.’ ‘Not that it hath a Rattle. The Tail of this Viper is small towards the End, and terminates in a blunt, horny Point, about half an Inch long. This harmless little Thing has given a dreadful Character to its Owner, imposing a Belief on the Credulous that he is the terrible Horn Snake armed with Death at both Ends, thus attributing to him another Instrument of Death besides that he had before, though in reality of equal Truth with that of the Two-headed Amphisbæna. Yet we are told that this fatal Horn, by a Jerk of the Tail, not only mortally wounds Men and other Animals but if by Chance struck into a young Tree, whose Bark is more easily penetrated than an old one, the Tree instantly withers, and turns black and dies.’[52]
Unfortunately, in mentioning the ‘Horn snake,’ many subsequent writers, seizing on the marvellous rather than the rational, have omitted the qualifying ‘it is said to inflict a wound,’ and Catesby’s exposition of the absurdity; thus handing down as a fact that the tail was truly a terrible weapon!
It was probably this water viper which Chateaubriand had in his mind when, towards the end of that century, he described the ‘Prickly snake, short and thick. It has a sting in its tail, the wound of which is mortal!’ Chateaubriand was much quoted for a long period.
Dr. J. E. Holbrooke, in his North American Herpetology, published at New York in 1842, corroborates all Catesby further said regarding the fish-loving tastes of the ‘Thorn-tail’ snake, and which obtained for it the specific name piscivorus. It frequents damp and swampy places, and is never seen far from water. In the summer (during Catesby’s time), great numbers might be seen lying on the low boughs of trees overhanging a river, whence they would drop into the water and pursue the fish with great swiftness. Few fish exceed its velocity in swimming. Cenchris or Trigonocephalus piscivorus is the name by which American herpetologists now recognise it. It is becoming rare where formerly it abounded, but is still found in the wilder districts of the less settled States, and in the hot weather may be seen lying motionless on the low branches, and often so like a portion of the bough as not to be observed till the sudden plunge tells that a deadly snake was close at hand. It is a cannibal besides, and other snakes are afraid of it and give it a wide berth. The horny spine (which is a mere hardening and consolidation of the terminal scales) and another feature, namely the ‘pit’ in its cheeks, described in chap. xxi., prove it to be allied to the rattlesnake. It is therefore included among the Crotalidæ, of which more hereafter.[53]
A number of the ‘Pit vipers’ and Trigonocephali are furnished with hard-pointed tails, and when they vibrate them rapidly, as many snakes do under excitement, the rustling against the dead leaves produces a sound very similar to the sibilation of the true Crotalus tail.