All rattlers, as the name indicates, have a horny appendage to the tail, formed of separate button-like objects, that rattle together when the tail is vibrated. This rattle not only serves to warn human beings of danger, but also to arouse in animals a curiosity that often proves fatal. The popular belief that a rattle is added every year, and that it is possible to determine the age of the animals by this means, is not borne out by facts. Sometimes two rattles are known to appear within a year, and other instances are recorded where four have been attained in that period, and others still when several have been lost, new ones taking their places. The number of rattles is also uncertain. The greatest number, as observed by Dr. Holbrook, is twenty-one, but a specimen is mentioned in the books that had forty-four. Mild and peaceful in disposition, the Rattlesnake has never been known, unless provoked, to attack a human being, nor to follow him with hostile intention. He preys upon small animals, as rats, squirrels, rabbits and birds, and can always be approached when he is stretched out, only striking when he is coiled. He is not a climber, seldom, if ever, being found in trees. His alleged powers of fascination are purely mythical. The horror his presence inspires often paralyzes with fear his victim, who, incapable of flight, stupidly awaits his fate. Men, women and children have been known, when attacked by these animals, to become rooted to the spot, as it were, by fear and surprise. All the so-called cases of fascination can be explained by the fear which the snake’s unlooked-for presence inspires. Wonderful curative powers are imputed to the oil of the Rattlesnake. Many snakes are killed during the summer months for this oil, but the grand gathering of the crop is in the fall, when they have repaired to their dens and wintering places. Sunny days in October and November are chosen by snake-hunters for raiding them. The snakes, dull and sluggish at that time of the year, crawl out of their dens upon the rocks, huddling together by the score for the purpose of basking in the sun. Armed with old-fashioned flails the hunters, when they come upon a group of snakes, proceed at once to thresh them, but few making good their escape. The Rattlesnakes, assorted from other species that are frequently massed together with them, are carried home, when the oil is simply tried out, bottled up and is then ready for the market and the credulous patient. No subject connected with snakes, it would seem, has attracted so much attention as the vexed one as to the care which they take of their young. Snakes would hardly be expected to show any great amount of maternal affection, but that they do, and in a most remarkable manner, by taking their young into their mouths, if alarmed, is a well-established fact. The mother, when danger is imminent, sounds her rattle as a signal, opens her very large mouth, and receives in it her little family.