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Updated: April 30, 2025
They move; uncoil themselves, and join the crotalus; suddenly the room seems alive with the venomous creatures. I hear the dreaded rattle and the sibilant hiss; rushing toward the fire, I seize the tripod and dash it to the ground, scattering the glowing embers in every direction. My fright becomes terrible, and I imagine the monsters are crawling over my body.
Deerfoot shared the shivering disgust which nearly every person feels for crawling reptiles. Nothing was so hideous to him as the crotalus, and when he caught sight of one he rarely allowed it to escape. An electric shock thrilled through him as he snatched back his hand in time to avoid the sting, for the snake must have been as much astonished as he by its disturbance.
But the crotalus is one of the most sluggish of snakes; and, before it could get back within the log, the forked sapling descended upon its neck, and pinned it fast to the ground! Its body now writhed over the grass in helpless contortions a formidable creature to behold.
Bernard considered it necessary to get a live crotalus or two into his possession, if this were possible. On inquiry, he found that there was a certain family living far up the mountainside, not a mile from the ledge, the members of which were said to have taken these creatures occasionally, and not to be in any danger, or at least in any fear, of being injured by them.
When no semblance of life remained, Deerfoot approached nigh enough to count the rattles. They were twenty-eight in number. The time was near for serpents and bears to take to winter quarters, and the fate of this extraordinary crotalus forcibly illustrated the truth that delays are often dangerous. Several times on the road, Deerfoot met those of his own race.
The sounds produced were exactly similar to those often heard in the depths of the American forest, when the dread crotalus plunders the nest of the Virginian nightingale. The stratagem proved successful. In a few moments the lozenge-shaped head of the reptile appeared outside the cavity. Its forking tongue was protruded at short intervals, and its small dark eyes glittered with rage.
One of the most striking alleged facts connected with the mysterious relation existing between the serpent and the human species is the influence which the poison of the Crotalus, taken internally, seemed to produce over the moral faculties, in the experiments instituted by Dr. Hering at Surinam.
The South American rattlesnake the Boaquira crotalus horridus has the rattle placed at the end of the tail. It consists of several dry, hard, bony processes, so shaped that the tip of each upper bone runs within two of the bones below it. By this means they have not only a movable coherence, but also make a multiplied sound, each bone hitting against the others at the same time.
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