This extreme activity in the rattlesnake is not in accordance with our alien experience. Still we hear of it from more than one writer and in widely separated habitats. The Mexican and Brazilian words may have alluded to the rapidity of motion in striking its prey, and which in its swiftness can scarcely be followed. Or it is possible that the reptile which as a captive in our chilling climate is so slow and sluggish, may, when stimulated by a tropical sun and under peculiar excitement, occasionally exhibit a vivacity incredible to us who see it only in menageries. Regarding other species of viperine snakes, we have sometimes similar evidence; and there is nothing in the structure of the Crotalus to contradict it.
One more of the unpronounceable Mexican names we must inflict on the reader, to show how this serpent was distinguished among all others even in length of title. F. Fernandez, or Hernandez, in his Animalium Mexicanum, p. 63, A.D. 1628, calls it Teuchlacotzauhqui, because it surpasses all others in ‘l’horrible bruit de sa sonnette.’
As may be supposed, anybody who could see this remarkable snake on its native soil was ready to tell something about it; and from the time that Dr. Tyson dissected his specimen and made it better known to the ‘Curious,’ many other communications saw light through the pages of the Philosophical Transactions during the next few years.
In experimenting to discover the source of the ‘mischief,’ one skilful ‘Chyrurgeon’ proved that the gall of vipers is not venomous, only bitter.
A Mr. John Clayton, in an Account of the Beasts in Virginia, 1694, tells us the rattlesnake’s ‘Tayle is composed of perished Joynts like a dry Husk. The Old shake and shiver these Rattles with wonderful Nimbleness; the Snake is a Majestick sort of Creature, and will scarce meddle with anything unless provoked.’ He also describes the ‘fistulous Teeth’ and the poison being injected through these ‘into the very mass of the blood.’ Effective remedies are spoken of, as if not much doubt of a cure existed. An Indian was bitten in the arm, who ‘clapt a hot burning coal thereon and singed it stoutly.’
In Italy experiments still went on, and a Mr. C. J. Sprengle wrote to the Royal Society from Milan (1722), that in a room opened at the top were sixty vipers from all parts of Italy. ‘Whereupon we catch’d some mice and threw them in, one at a time, among all that number of vipers; but not one concerned himself about the mice, only one pregnant viper who interchanged eyes with the mouse, which took a turn or two, giving now and then a squeak, and then ran with great swiftness into the chops of the viper, where it gradually sunk down the gullet.’ And from this sinister proceeding on the part of the viper, Mr. Sprengle argues a fact generally borne out in zoological collections ever since, namely, that venomous snakes in captivity will not eat until they become reconciled.
And so by degrees these many interesting ophiological facts have been worked out and established. In 1733, vol. xxxviii., some experiments made by Sir Hans Sloane are recorded. A dog was made to tread on a rattlesnake which bit him. In one minute of time the dog was paralytic in the hinder legs, and was dead in less than three minutes.
Another subject of subsequent interest and even importance was some observations made by Sir Hans Sloane on the ‘Charms, Inchantments, or Fascinations of Snakes,’ in reply to communications by Paul Dudley, Esq., F.R.S., and Col. Beverley, both of whom believed that the rattlesnake could bring a bird or a squirrel from a tree into their mouths by the power of their eye.
A word on fascination will come in its place, but as a part of rattlesnake history Sir Hans Sloane may be quoted here. And yet a reason so long ago suggested by him, who thoughtfully watched a snake, seems almost entirely to have escaped notice. He thinks ‘the whole mystery of charming or enchanting any Creature is simply this. Small Animals or Birds bitten, the poison allows them time to run a little way (as perhaps a bird to fly up into a tree), where the snakes watch them with great earnestness, till they fall down, when the snakes swallow them.’[79]
Sir Hans Sloane quotes a good deal from the work by Colonel Beverley,[80] and the observations made by him; particularly one which the author remarks is a ‘curiosity which he never met with in print,’ viz. the instinct which displays itself so strongly after death in the rattlesnake. A man chopped off the head and a few inches of the neck of a rattlesnake, and then on touching the ‘springing teeth with a stick, the head gave a sudden champ with its mouth,’ thus displaying the impulse to bite. He noticed the action of the springing teeth ‘when they are raised, which I take to be only at the will of the snake to do mischief.’ Strange to tell, many of the above peculiarities have been described as ‘new to science’ within forty years.