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There is now to be seen in a tall glass jar, in the Museum of Comparative Anatomy at Cantabridge in the territory of the Massachusetts, a huge crotalus, of a species which grows to more frightful dimensions than our own, under the hotter skies of South America.
The stinging sensation, however, awoke me; and my eyes mechanically turned towards the hand, where I still felt pain. Sure enough my wrist was punctured and bleeding! A feeling of horror ran through my veins, as the "sker-r-rr" of the crotalus sounded in my ear; and, looking around, I saw the glittering body of the reptile extended along the grass, and gliding rapidly away!
The reptile struck again, but it was already wounded to that extent that its blow was erratic, and, though it came near reaching the hand of Jack, it missed by a safe margin. One of the singular facts connected with the crotalus species is the ease with which it is killed. The writer once ended the career of a huge specimen with a single blow of a whip-lash.
Afterward it occurred to me to wonder that I had not been struck; for nothing so alarms and angers a crotalus as a swift motion like that with which I had removed the cuye. The rattles never grew again, and my best snake was spoiled.
Still higher and farther west lay the accursed ledge, shunned by all, unless it were now and then a daring youth, or a wandering naturalist who ventured to its edge in the hope of securing some infantile Crotalus durissus, who had not yet cut his poison teeth.
There was the usual tall box with its bleached, rattling tenant; there were jars in rows where "interesting cases" outlived the grief of widows and heirs in alcoholic immortality, for your "preparation-jar" is the true "monumentum aere perennius;" there were various semi-possibilities of minute dimensions and unpromising developments; there were shining instruments of evil aspect, and grim plates on the walls, and on one shelf by itself, accursed and apart, coiled in a long cylinder of spirit, a huge crotalus, rough-scaled, flatheaded, variegated with dull bands, one of which partially encircled the neck like a collar, an awful wretch to look upon, with murder written all over him in horrid hieroglyphics.
There was the usual tall box with its bleached, rattling tenant; there were jars in rows where "interesting cases" outlived the grief of widows and heirs in alcoholic immortality, for your "preparation-jar" is the true "monumentum aere perennius;" there were various semi-possibilities of minute dimensions and unpromising developments; there were shining instruments of evil aspect, and grim plates on the walls, and on one shelf by itself, accursed and apart, coiled in a long cylinder of spirit, a huge crotalus, rough-scaled, flatheaded, variegated with dull bands, one of which partially encircled the neck like a collar, an awful wretch to look upon, with murder written all over him in horrid hieroglyphics.
The naturalists drew up a paper on the "Probable Extinction of the Crotalus Durissus in the Township of Rockland." The engagement of the Widow Rowens to a Little Millionville merchant was announced, "Sudding 'n' onexpected," Widow Leech said, "waalthy, or she wouldn't ha' looked at him, fifty year old, if he is a day, 'n' hu'n't got a white hair in his head."
"You see" Nagoya spoke as he finished the test he was making at the moment "without a doubt it is crotalin, the venom of the rattlesnake, Crotalus horridus." "There was no snake actually present," I hastened to explain, breaking in. Then at a glance from Kennedy I stopped, abashed, for all this had been made clear to the scientist.
Still higher and farther west lay the accursed ledge, shunned by all, unless it were now and then a daring youth, or a wandering naturalist who ventured to its edge in the hope of securing some infantile Crotalus durissus, who had not yet cut his poison teeth.
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