The Anderson Intelligencer

How Rattlesnakes are Born.

Some months ago Doctors Cardwell and Westmoreland captured, at Prospect, in the lower edge of Giles County, near the Alabama line, a rattlesnake four feet three inches long and five inches in circumference. The snake was sent to the exposition, but the managers not deeming it proper to receive it, it was sent to the drug store of Messrs. Berry & Demoville, who also declined to give it quarters. It was then sent to the drug store of M. C. Cotton, in South Nashville, where it has been since the 15th of May.

When captured it had eight rattles and a button. Since that time it has been confined in a glass case, and has not partaken of one particle of food, though it has been tempted with mice and other small animals on which the reptile is accustomed to feed. The snake manifested no inconvenience from its confinement, nor did it lose any in size or bodily vitality. Its eyes continued to glisten like magnetic steel, and its lancinating tongue ready to protrude at the appearance of any one near the case. Dr. Cotton thought all the while it was a male. Though small mice and rats have been confined in the case with the snake until 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 a time, and in a coiled or striking position, their eyes glistening and their envenomed tongues continually darting out. The young ones are each from nine to fifteen inches in length, and in a state of perfect development. 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 reptiles each of these young snakes has a full button on the tail, which clearly refutes the idea that they have to be six months old before the formation of the button. The old snake was lying in her cage in a 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 natural maternal affection of instinct. This snake has been in captivity near four months, yet during all that period she has partaken of not a morsel of food, and has brooded her seven young. As to exactly how long from inception the process of gestation or incubation has been going on, there is no means of ascertaining, as we can only date from her captivity.

Dr. 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.

This snake, he says, did not partake of a particle 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 devouring them voraciously. It never would touch a lame mouse or a dead one, fresh as it might be. When a young rat was put into the case, it would plant its unerring fang in some part of the limb or body, and then wait until it died from the thorough inoculation of the poison. When quite dead, it would turn it over, take it head foremost and swallow it, evidently drawing nutriment from the poison its own fangs had infused. It shed its skin twice a year—each spring and autumn—a new rattle appearing at each shedding, which explodes the popular notion that but one rattle comes a year. Yesterday morning the doctor took the case and placed it in the sun. From the effects of the sun three of the young snakes died. Two others became stupefied, but recovered their vitality on being removed to the shade. The circumstance attracted large numbers of visitors to the drug store to see the venomous family.—Nashville American.