isfied that his second victim was dead, he glided into the bushes and left the dead snakes to me. The kingsnake was scarcely half the length of either rattlesnake, and showed neither fear nor hesitation at any time during the battle. The rattlesnakes showed great alarm from the start; and the second one seemed too much paralyzed by fear to crawl away during the first battle. Neither rattlesnake made a single stroke that I saw. Both rattlers had their heads dislocated from their bodies, and several inches of the vertebra crushed to a pulp. The danger of death from the bite of a poisonous snake is, in my opinion, very much exaggerated. Of course, there is danger of death when a large snake plants a full dose of poison in a vein or artery; in such a case the most prompt and heroic treatment would hardly avail; but like Mount Pelee's eruptions, such bites are few and far between. CROTALUS HORRIDUS, Linnæus. ("Banded Rattlesnake.") PLATE VIII. DESCRIPTION. Head angular. Rows of scales on the back twenty-three to twenty-five, all carinated. Tail black. Above sulphur brown, with two rows of confluent brown lozenges. Light line from superciliary to angle of the mouth; behind this a dark patch. Head above covered with small subtuberculous scales. General color above that of roll sulphur; beneath, whitish yellow. Along the back is a double series of subrhomboidal blotches, looking as if they had been in contact, and then the line of junction partially effaced, for the three or four central rows. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. The banded rattlesnake is found in the timbers of Central Texas, and in April, 1902, Dr. H. W. Crouse secured a fine specimen near the city of Victoria, Texas. CROTALUS MOLOSSUS, B. and G. ("Dog-faced Rattlesnake.") PLATE IX. DESCRIPTION. One of the most strongly marked of all species. Head very broad in front; outline nearly rectangular. General aspect smoother than in Crotali generally; scales rounded at the posterior apex, carinated but slightly. General color above, that of roll sulphur; beneath, pale yellowish. Posteriorly, very faintly clouded with brownish. Tail black. Along the back is a series of transverse reddish or chestnut brown lozenges embraced in a width of twelve or fourteen scales and four. or five scales long, and with the outlines generally one scale in width, and with the centers of the ground color; sometimes divided by a median line of brown so as to show two yellowish spots inside of the lozenges. A remarkable character of this species is that each individual scale is of the same uniform tint to its base, and not showing two colors as in other species. (Stejneger, "Poisonous Snakes of North America.") GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. "The Quoting from Report Nat. Museum, 1893, page 426: Texas specimen upon which Hallowell based the Crotalus ornatus, was collected by Dr. Heerman at the Pecos river, en route between El Paso and San Antonio, and is so far the only specimen obtained in Texas." (C. ornatus is now considered a synonym of C. molossus.) HABITS. Nothing is known of its habits. CROTALUS CONFLUENTUS, Say. ("Prairie Rattlesnake.") PLATE X. DESCRIPTION. Head subtriangular. This species bears a considerable resemblance to Crotalus atrox, but the body is more slender and compact. Scales on top of the head anterior to the superciliaries nearly uniform in size. Line of scales across from one nostril to the other consists of six, and not four, as in Crotalus atrox. General color yellowish brown with a series of subquadrate dark blotches, with the corners rounded and the anterior and posterior sides frequently concave, the exterior convex. These blotches are ten or eleven scales wide, and four or five long, lighter in the center, and margined for one-third of a scale with light yellowish. The intervals along the back light brown, darker than the margin of the blotches. Anteriorly the interval between the dark spots is but a single scale; posteriorly it is more, becoming sometimes two scales, 436 THE TEXAS MEDICAL NEWS. where also the spots are more rhomboidal or lozenge shaped; nearer the tail, however, they become transversely quadrate. The sides of the head present the usual light stripe from the posterior extremity of the superciliary; and passes, however, to the angle of the jaw on the neck, along the second row of scales, above the labials. A second stripe passes in front of the eye to the labials, widening there. (Stejneger, "Poisonous Snakes of North America.") GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION. Dr. Stejneger says: "While in northwestern Texas it is recorded. from between the main forks of the Brazos river and on the Llano Estacado as far south as Cañon Blanco." HABITS. Dr. Stejneger says: "The prairie rattlesnake being one of the smaller species, as it seldom reaches a length of over four feet with a proportionately slender body, does not seem to be a very dangerous snake." CROTALUS LEPIDUS, Kennicott. PLATE XI. DESCRIPTION. The top of the muzzle is covered by eight smooth scutæ. Scales of body in twenty-three rows, the two external on each side smooth. The rattle consists of seven segments and a button, and narrows gradually towards the extremity. The color above is greenish gray, which is crossed by nineteen jet black rings on the body, which do not extend on the abdomen. These rings are two and a half scales wide on the middle line, and narrow downwards on each side so as to cover but one scale in width. The scales which border the annuli are half black and half green, the effect of which is to give the edge of the ring a turreted outline. The edges of the ground color are paler than any other part of the scales, thus throwing the black into greater relief. A large black spot, shaped like two hearts side by side with the apices posterior, marks the nape, and there is an irregular small black spot on each side of the occiput. No other marks on the head. Near the middle of the gray spaces of the body some of the scales of many of the rows have black tips. The tail is light brown above and has a basal broad black, and two other narrow brown annuli. Below, dirty |