COPPERHEAD (Ancistrodon contortrix), the most widely distributed, and in many places the most abundant of the venomous snakes occurring in the eastern United States. It belongs to the family Crotalida. (q.v.), but with the water moccasin belongs to a genus (Ancis trodon), distinguished from the rattlesnakes by the absence of rattles, while the copperhead is peculiar' in the presence of a small additional plate between the eye and nostril. The copper head seldom exceeds a length of three feet. It is brown, with a series of dark blotches on the back, and the triangular head is a bronzy red, from which circumstance it takes its name, while the white color of the interior of the mouth has given rise to another of its names, that of cottonmouth, also applied to the water moccasin. It is sometimes called the red viper. Like other poisonous snakes the copperhead has been exterminated in the thickly settled parts of the northern States, but is still abundant in unsettled regions and in the South. It is par
tial both to the neighborhood of water and to dry rocky hills and, owing to its activity, its silent approach and its irascible temper, is justly feared by man and the lower animals, in cluding non-venomous snakes. Some of the lat ter, as the blacksnake, will, however, attack and eat it. The customary food of the copperhead consists of small birds and mammals. About seven or eight young are produced at a time, this snake being viviparous ; it is said that when preg nant a large number of females will sometimes twine themselves together, whence the epithet ((contortrix." As a poisonous snake the copper head, as well as many harmless American snakes, is sometimes called an adder or viper, though in common with all related poisonous serpents of North America, it differs from the true vipers in the presence of the preorbital sensory pit. In England adder is the name applied to the only native venomous serpent, the Pelias berus.