That the work of M. Moyse Charas was translated into English the following year, proves that the English _virtuosi_ had really become ‘animated’ in the looked-for direction.[78] In the preface of his book we read: ‘If Reflexion be made on the many Wonders that are found in the Body of this Animal’ (the viper), ‘it will be easily granted that it cannot be inquir’d into with too much Exactness: and that it is not a Work that can be finish’t at one or two Sittings.’ This little digression from the rattlesnake is not without its object; for from this correspondence through the _Philosophical Transactions_ we may date the birth of ophiological science in England; and the reader will be able to place himself on that standpoint in order to reciprocate the kind of interest with which such an entirely strange and as yet unknown serpent as a rattlesnake was received a short time afterwards. In vol. x. 1676, there is ‘An Account of Virginia, its Situation, Temperature,’ etc., communicated by Mr. Thomas Glover, ‘an ingenious Chirugion that hath lived some years in the Country.’ This gentleman tells us of the climate and productions of the new colony, not omitting those of the animal and vegetable kingdoms; among the various strange creatures which he describes in the crude language of the time are five or six sorts of snakes, amongst which ‘the Rattlesnake is the most remarkable, being about the bigness of a Man’s Legg, and for the most part a yard and a half long. He hath a Rattle at the End of his Tail, wherewith he maketh a Noise when any one approacheth nigh him: which seemeth to be a peculiar Providence of God to warn People to avoid the Danger; for this Creature is so venomous that the Bite of it is of most dangerous Consequence, unless they make use of the proper Antidote, of which I shall take occasion to speak somewhat hereafter.’ Such accounts, coupled with the interest awakened in the members of the Royal Society by the Florentine experimentalists, caused the first arrival of a rattlesnake in England to be a grand era in ophiological annals; and with its eventful appearance began its scientific history. The published records of the _Philosophical Transactions_ again perpetuate the impressions it created, and also many collateral points of interest. A paper entitled _Vipera Caudisona Americana; or, The Anatomy of a Rattle-Snake_, was read by Dr. Edward Tyson, of the Royal Medical College of London, in 1683; who dissected one at the repository of the Royal Society in Jan. 1682. (The above scientific name is erroneously attributed to Laurenti, 1768.)