A word in conclusion about the rattlesnake’s enemies; and of these hogs come first, next to man. Wild hogs, peccaries, and deer in their native haunts, and doubtless an immense number of snake-eating birds, devour young rattlesnakes. Deer strike them with their hoofs, jumping on them with wonderful adroitness, so as to pin them down with all four feet. Pigs in the west derive no small part of their subsistence from snakes; and, as is now a well-known fact, the introduction of hogs has done more than anything else—not even excepting the annual _battue_—to diminish the number of rattlesnakes. The venom being ‘innocuous to hogs,’ is a fact only partially stated. A thin hog, bitten on a vein, might die as speedily as any other victim. It is because the venom fails to penetrate the fat, or, as Dr. Coues more ably expresses it, ‘the fluid fails to enter the circulation through the layer of adipose tissue.’ Pigs are not invariably exempt, any more than is the mongoose, from the cobra’s bite. In both cases adroitness assists the animals to evade the strike, and in the latter case the thick fur of the mongoose is as great a protection to it as the fat is to the hog. Dr. Coues mentions a danger not often anticipated in dealing with rattlesnakes when you wish to examine them. This is their habit of twining themselves around the arm, or wherever they can get hold. ‘Grasp it fearlessly at the back of the neck,’ he says; ‘but even then a large one can constrict enough to paralyze both arms.’ A man who was thus trammelled had to be relieved by a bystander. We are not always prepared for constricting rattlesnakes! [Illustration] CHAPTER XXII. _THE XENODONS._ _AND MY ‘DISCOVERY.’_ THOUGH there are only about eight species that have a legitimate right to this patronymic, there are—as my readers have seen in chap. xix.—great numbers of ‘strange-toothed’ snakes that have a zoological, or rather a dentitional right to it. The present chapter, however, will comprise only a few of those most nearly allied to the recognised _Xenodons_, which with _Heterodon_ must occupy some pages. The _Xenodons_ have an especial interest, not only on account of their remarkable dentition, but their vernacular names, which in Brazil, where these snakes are common, have led to much and frequent confusion. This can be remedied only after considerable lapse of time, for the confusion has unfortunately been disseminated in print, and the vernaculars, confused by local prejudices, still obtain. The incident of my own first acquaintance with a _Xenodon_ will in part explain the kind of puzzle which prevails; and a little personal gossip about this may, I trust, be tolerated.