Alas! the creature had no rattle. ‘It is too young: there is only the _button_,’ as my friend called the rudimentary promise of one. I profited by the occasion, however, to have a good though disappointed look, not unmixed with contempt, at the juvenile Crotalus, being so very small and unworthy the ceremony. A foot or so in length, it began to make its escape into the long grass, when by one quick stamp of his heel our champion disabled it. Then, throwing it into a pool of water, he remounted, and the horses fearlessly proceeded. [Illustration: A fully developed rattle of a rather small snake (life size).] A few days after this, to compensate my disappointment, I was presented with a ‘full-grown rattle’ from a Kentucky snake, and here it is. Asking how he knew it was ‘full grown,’ my friend explained that the links being all of a nearly uniform size, proved that the snake had also attained a certain growth during the development of that rattle. This will be more readily comprehended on seeing the next specimen, which is the rattle of a Mexican snake during early and rapid growth, and a very perfect one, presenting no flaw or friction; proving that it has not been subject to very long or very rough usage. [Illustration: A very perfect rattle (natural size).] In texture this is scarcely so stout as the shaft of a quill, nor so pale, but almost as transparent. As regards size, the terminal link or ‘button’ may be compared to the nail of a young child, the intermediate links gradually increasing with the growth of the snake to the nails of older children, and the largest link to that of a full-grown person. From the form of this rattle—an accurate copy of the original—we may infer that it grew rapidly at first, and that the snake was large during the development of the later links. The next, reduced in size, is the rattle of a snake which had attained full growth, but from which the younger or earlier links with the terminal ‘button’ are gone. [Illustration: Portion of a long rattle, much reduced in size.] Extending this specimen by imaginary converging lines, we form an idea of what its length might have been if perfect, probably about twenty joints, which is a not unusual number; but we perceive at once that a rattle, as we happen to see it, is no criterion of its age or its original form. Rarely is a snake seen with a long rattle perfect and entire. But whenever it gradually tapers and ends with the pointed terminal link, we may decide that that rattle has escaped injury from its earliest development.