Wharton (1960:125-126) reported the birth and behavior of a brood of seven cottonmouths in Florida. I was given notes of a similar nature by Richard S. Funk of Junction City, Kansas, on a brood of five cottonmouths. The mother of the brood was caught in June, 1962, in Tarrant County, Texas, by Richard E. Smith, and was 705 millimeters in snout-vent length. The first young was found dead in an extended position a few inches from the fetal membranes at 11:05 p.m. on August 22. The second young was born at 11:07 p.m. The intervals between the successive births were three, seven, and four minutes; and time until the sac was ruptured in each instance was six, five, eight, and 11 minutes. The time interval between the rupture of the sac and emergence of each individual was 41, 92, 154, and 34 minutes. The mother's actions in giving birth to the last four young were essentially as described by Wharton (_loc. cit._), except that the intervals between successive births did not increase. Within one minute after rupturing the sac and while its head was protruding, each of the four living young opened its mouth widely from three to seven times, then took its first breath. Breaths for the first three hours were steady at three or four per minute but then decreased to two or three per minute. Pulse rate for the four averaged 38 per minute while at rest but increased to 44 per minute after voluntarily crawling. Number of Young per Litter Records of from one to 16 young per litter have been reported (Ditmars, 1945:330; Clark, 1949:259), but the average is probably between six or seven. Most accounts in the literature present information on number of ova or embryos per female rather than the number of young. Size and age of the mother (Table 9) influence the number of ova produced. Allen and Swindell (1948:11) recorded three to 12 embryos in 31 cottonmouths varying in total length from 26 to 44 inches. An average of 6.5 embryos per female was found. TABLE 9.--Number of Ova Produced by Fecund Cottonmouths. ====================+============+====================== Snout-vent length | Number | Number of ova, in millimeters | in sample | average and extremes --------------------+------------+---------------------- 450-549 | 10 | 4.1 (2 to 7) 550-649 | 11 | 4.9 (1 to 8) 650-749 | 4 | 6.3 (4 to 8) 750-849 | 1 | 5 850-949 | 1 | 14 --------------------------------------------------------