Many a foray had the towns-people made, and many a stuffed skin was shown as a trophy,--nay, there were families where the children's first toy was made from the warning appendage that once vibrated to the wrath of one of these "cruel serpents." Sometimes one of them, coaxed out by a warm sun, would writhe himself down the hillside into the roads, up the walks that led to houses,--worse than this, into the long grass, where the barefooted mowers would soon pass with their swinging scythes,--more rarely into houses, and on one memorable occasion, early in the last century, into the meeting-house, where he took a position on the pulpit-stairs,--as is narrated in the "Account of Some Remarkable Providences," etc., where it is suggested that a strong tendency of the Rev.Didymus Bean, the Minister at that time, towards the Arminian Heresy may have had something to do with it, and that the Serpent supposed to have been killed on the Pulpit-Stairs was a false show of the Daemon's Contrivance, he having come in to listen to a Discourse which was a sweet Savour in his Nostrils, and, of course, not being capable of being killed Himself.

Others said, however, that, though there was good Reason to think it was a Damon, yet he did come with Intent to bite the Heel of that faithful Servant,--etc.
One Gilson is said to have died of the bite of a rattlesnake in this town early in the present century.

After this there was a great snake-hunt, in which very many of these venomous beasts were killed,--one in particular, said to have been as big round as a stout man's arm, and to have had no less than forty joints to his rattle,--indicating, according to some, that he had lived forty years, but, if we might put any faith in the Indian tradition, that he had killed forty human beings,--an idle fancy, clearly.

This hunt, however, had no permanent effect in keeping down the serpent population.
Viviparous, creatures are a kind of specie-paying lot, but oviparous ones only give their notes, as it were, for a future brood,--an egg being, so to speak, a promise to pay a young one by and by, if nothing happen.

Now the domestic habits of the rattlesnake are not studied very closely, for obvious reasons; but it is, no doubt, to all intents and purposes oviparous.