Waterton maintained that Audubon's drawing of the rattlesnake, to which we have referred, was a monstrosity, "a fabulous Hydra, with its eyes starting out of their sockets," and a point repeatedly ridiculed was his representation of the fangs as slightly recurved, or bent up at their tips. Who had ever heard of such an anomaly? Certainly not the doughty lord of "Walton Hall," who declared that the fangs of poisonous snakes were always curved like a scythe, with their points bent downwards. Waterton prided himself on his knowledge of these reptiles, and certainly was not lacking in self-confidence. According to his own account, he went eleven months in the forests of Brazil without shoe or stocking to his foot, and on a certain occasion in London secured with his hands and removed from its cage a live rattlesnake; but, like so many sophisticated writers on natural history, he took to analogy like a duck to water. Waterton's statement sounds plausible enough, but obviously could be proved only by extensive observations and comparisons. When Audubon was proceeding up Galveston Bay to Houston, Texas, in the spring of 1837, with his son, John, and Edward Harris, they stopped at the plantation of Colonel James Morgan, near Red Fish Bar. "There, among other rarities," said he, "we procured a fine specimen of the climbing rattlesnake with _recurved_ fangs, which with several others of the same kind, is now in my possession."[65] In writing to Thomas M. Brewer, from Charleston, on June 12 of this year, he alluded to this subject as follows: "I must not forget to say to you that I had the good fortune to procure specimens of my 'Climbing Rattlesnake with DOUBLE _recurved fangs_' which, I am told, will prove a new genus! and therefore the Messrs. Ord and Waterton—_good souls!_—will be perfectly delighted at the sight of this strange reptile."[66] Unfortunately a large part of Audubon's collections made upon this expedition were lost. I have seen no other reference to this extraordinary peculiarity, and there the matter seems to have rested until the present time.