Catesby himself had a narrow escape once, when he occupied a room on the ground floor, and a rattlesnake was found snugly coiled in his bed. Notwithstanding a growing acquaintance with the rattlesnake among the F.R.S.’s, to the general public it was still almost unknown. Even in the middle of the eighteenth century an itinerant exhibitor could say what he pleased about it to a too credulous public. An extract from an old newspaper suggests an ancestral Barnum joining hands with a journalist to make a fortune out of one thus exhibited. Not so much was expected of journalists in those days; but even now, so far as snakes are concerned, a vast number of errors creep into newspapers. ‘A BEAUTIFUL RATTLESNAKE ALIVE. ‘This exotic Animal is extremely well worthy the Observation of the Curious: Its Eyes are of great Lustre, even equal to that of a Diamond, and its Skin so exquisitely mottled and of such surpassing Beauty as baffles the Art of the most celebrated Painter: It is about five Feet long, and so sagacious, that it will rattle whenever the Keeper commands it: There is not the least cause for Fear, though it were at Liberty in the Room: but that the Ladies may be under no Apprehension on that Account, it is kept in a Glass-Case. It is very Active, and is the first ever shown alive in England.’—From _The General Advertiser_, LONDON, Sat., Jan. 4th, 1752. Any ‘sagacity’ displayed in this exhibition was on the part of the keeper, who had discovered the exceeding timidity of this reptile, and had observed that it used its rattle whenever alarmed or provoked. However, the timidity answered very well for obedience, and no doubt drew many spectators. A notable feature in the rattlesnake was its fecundity and prevalence. This we gather from all who in the early days of American history had anything to tell us of the country and its inhabitants. Whether the subject of their pen were Topography, Indians, or Productions, a rattlesnake crept in. Collateral evidence of this kind, given with no motive for exaggeration, nor even as ‘natural history,’ may therefore be accredited. A slaughter of rattlesnakes was as much an annual custom as the slaughter of hogs. Regularly as a crop of hay came a crop of rattlesnakes. On account of the oil manufactured from their fat, the slaughter partook also of a commercial character; but more commonly it was a war of extinction, like the battles with the Indians. Usually an annual, frequently a biennial, crusade was undertaken, the settlers being well acquainted with their habits and retreats. It was a well-known fact that, towards the close of summer, and on the first indication of frost, the reptiles returned simultaneously and in vast numbers to a favourite spot. Not only hundreds but thousands make for this winter rendezvous year after year.