The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1872-08-22
How the Rattlesnakes Multiply and
Replenisl the Earth.


About the 10th of May last Drs.
Csrdwell and Westmoreland captured at
Prospect, in the lower edge of Giles
County, near the Alabama line, rattle
snake four feet three inches long and
five inches in circumference. When
captured it had eight rattles and but
ton. Since that time it has been con-
! fined in a glass case it has not partaken
of one particle of food, Though it has
been tempted with mice and other small
animals on which the reptile is accus-
| toned to feed. The snake manifested
no inconvenience from its confinement,
nor did it lose any in size or bodily vi
tality. Its eyes continued to glisten
like magnetic steel, and its lancinating
fangs to protrude at the appearance of
any one near the case. DIR. Cotton
thought all the while it was male
| Though small rats and mice have been
confined in the case with the snake un-
til their own hunger urged them to bite
at its scaly hide, the serpent refused to
| give them notice or to partake of food.
On two or three occasions it has taken
small quantities of water.
On Thursday at one o'clock on going
into the back room of the store where
the case is kept it was discovered that
the snake had given birth TO four young
snakes, and by three o'clock she had
given birth to three more, making seven
in all. The young snakes made their
appearance one at time and in coiled
or striking position, their eyes glisten-
ing and their envenomed tongues con-
tinually darting out. The young ones
are each from nine to fifteen inches in
length, and in state of perfect devel-
opment. They are quick of motion and
possess no ordinary spinal vitality, as
they crawl readily to the top of the
case and move with celerity across and
around it from end to end.
What is most singular and contrary
to all the received notions concerning
the reptile, each of these young snakes
has full button on the tail, which
clearly refutes the idea that they have
to be six months old before the forma-
ton of the button. The old snake was
lying in her cage in lethargic state,
with some indications, as the doctor
thought, of increasing the coiling family.
The young snakes coil around her, and
under and over her, and she seems to
have for them the maternal affection OF
instinct. This snake has been in cap
tivity near four months, yet during all
that period she has partaken of not a
morsel of food, and has brooded he1
seven young. AS to exactly how long
from inception the process of CESSATION
or incubation has been going on, there
is no means of ascertaining, as we can
only date from her captivity.
DIR. Cotton informs us that he once
before kept in the same case a large.
sized rattlesnake for three years and
nine months, and that he studied closely
its various moods and changes. Thi;
snake, he says, did not partake Of par.
ticle of food for the first nine months
and but little water. He then gave
it mice, rats, ETC., putting the same into
the case alive, and it commenced de-
vouring them voraciously. 1t nevel
would touch a tame mouse, or a deat
one, fresh as it might be. When {
young rat was put into the case it woult
plant its unerring fang in some part O
the limb or body, and then wait unit
it died from the thorough incubation o
the poison. When quite dead it woult
turn it over, take it head foremost ant
swallow it, evidently drawing nutrimen
from the poison its own fangs had in
fused. 1t shed its skin twice year
| each spring and autumn-n new rattl
appearing at each shedding, which ex
plodes the popular notion that but on
, rattle comes year. Yesterday morn
ing the doctor took the case and PLACED
it in the sun. From the effects of tn
sun three young ones died. Two other
became stupeied, but recovered thei
vitality on being removed to the shade
, Nashville American