Their physical constitution, then, as well as structure, must have very much changed to enable them to exist so far from the tropics.
And still there are the creatures with flippers, and flappers, and fins to decide upon. And then the gigantic salamander with a hundred and fifty feet of tail! But these not being ophidians, and certainly not ‘sea serpents,’ must not intrude themselves here.
In their enormous development alone the supporters of Darwin may justly exult, for surely in them we shall see ‘the survival of the fittest.’
CHAPTER XVI.
RATTLESNAKE HISTORY.
FROM the peculiar rattling appendage, with which this snake is armed, it has excited the notice of European explorers since the very first settlement of the American Continent. Whenever a traveller attempted any printed account of the New World and its products, mention was made of this ‘viper with the bell.’
By and by, in 1762, a live specimen was brought to England, where it arrested the attention of the members of the Royal Society and the scientific ‘Chirugions’ of the day.