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REPTILES

OF

AMERICA.

IMPERFECT

MPERFECT as the lift of American quadrupeds and birds must be confeffed to be, thofe of the reptiles must be much more fo; few have been the characters who, with leifure and abilities, have poffeffed the inclination for these researches, and those who have attempted any thing of this kind, have contented themfelves with very partial advances, or have found fuch difficulties as have prevented any great progress; they have, however, done fufficient, we truft, to ftimulate others to a farther purfuit, and we may reasonably hope that a few years will open to us a more particular acquaintance with the woods, the maifhes, the mountains, and waters of the new continent. The following lifts in a more particular manner refer to NorthAmerica, though perhaps the greater part are found all over the

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Great Land do. called in the United States, Gopher,

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will. Cold affects the colours; in that uncertain climate, when there is a quick tranfition, in the fame day, from hot to cold; it changes inftantly from the moft brilliant green to a dull brown. It is fometimes tempted by a gleam of fas to quit its retreat, but by the fudden change of weather, is fo enfeebled, 21 not to be able to return to its hole, and will die with cold.

This reptile has a brown broad head; yellowish brown back, marked with broad tranfverfe dentated bars of black; fcales rough; belly cinereous; the jaws furnished with fmall sharp teeth; four fangs in the upper jaw, incurvated, large, and pointed, the inftruments of death; at the bafe of each a round orifice, opening into a hollow, that near the end of the tooth appears again in form of a fmall channel; these teeth may be erected or comprested; when in the action of biting, they force out of a gland near their roots the Fatal juice; this is received into the round orifice of the teeth, conveyed through the tube into the channel, and thence with usering direction ma the wound.

The tail is furnished with a rattle, consisting of joints loof-ly connected; the number uncertain, depending, as is pretended, on the age of the animal, it receiving with every year a new joint. Authors mention forty and feventy. Rattlefuakes grow to the length of eight for, and, according to a newfpsper account, to fourteen.

They warm in the lefs inhabited parts of North-America; now almoft extirpated in the populons; none found farther north than the mountains near lake Champlain; but in the fouth infett South-America, even as far as Brafil. Love woods and lofty hills, especially where the ftrata are rocky or chalky: the país near Niagara abounds with them. Being flow of motion, they fre

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