That nothing of much value to science was previously known about the reptile we gather from Dr. Tyson’s introductory words. ‘It were mightily to be wisht that we had the most compleat account of so _Curious_ an _Animal_. This which we _Dissected_ was sent to Mr. Henry Loades, a merchant in London, from Virginia, who was pleased not only to gratify the _Curiosity_ of the Royal Society, in showing it them alive, but likewise gave it them when dead.’ Thus did Mr. Loades unconsciously immortalize himself in the history of rattlesnakes. Merchants in those days were not F.Z.S.’s; and it is probable that he thought of nothing beyond ingratiating himself with the members of a learned Society by presenting them with a ‘serpente’ dead, whose ‘Bell’ had excited their curiosity when living; and he little dreamed that the origin and use of this strange _bell_ would not be determined two hundred years afterwards. Says Dr. Tyson: ‘I find the inward parts so conformable to those of a Viper that I have taken the liberty of placing it in that Classe and (since it has not that I know of any Latine Name) of giving it that of _Vipera Caudisona_: for as I am informed by Merchants ‘tis Viviparous, and the Epithet sufficiently differences it from those that have no Rattle.’ This scholarly anatomist had evidently devoted much careful labour to the task of hunting up all the literature that could throw any light on his much-prized specimen. He had no doubt been one of those ‘animated’ by the Florentine savants, and had made himself acquainted with all the viperine characters. He had doubtless read all that had already appeared in the _Philosophical Transactions_, and also the narratives of such _voyageurs_ as Hakluyt, Hernandez, Piso, and Marcgravius. Among the useful results of his researches he is able to give us many, we may say most, of its vernaculars in the countries of the New World settled by Europeans up to that date; and as in subsequent books of travel we hear of the rattlesnake frequently under these vernaculars, until, as of later years, its ordinary English name has been familiar to all, we have had a good deal to thank him for, were it only this. In addition to the authors already named, he gives us Guliemus Piso, Johnston, Merembergius, and ‘others that have wrot of it, and its anatomy, under the names of Boigininga or Boiginininga and Boiquira, which are its Brazile Names. By the Portuguese it is called Casca vela and Tangador: by the Dutch, Raetel Sclange; by those of Mexico, Teutlaco-cauehqui or Teuhtlacotl zauhqui, _i.e. Domina Serpentum_: and from its swift motion on the Rocks like the wind, Hoacoatl.’ Minutely and scientifically was that ‘viper with the sounding tail’ dissected and studied out by Dr. Tyson just two hundred years ago; and the excellent illustrations with which his description was elucidated were subsequently used in many first-class physiological works.