MOCCASIN SNAKE, WATER MOCCASIN, or COTTONMOUTH. An aquatic. venom ous (.1 nristrodon pisei ror us) of the Southern 'United States, allied to the eopperhend. It may grow to be four feet long; is thick and heavy in body; has a tapering tail. without any rattle or spine; and in color is dark chestnut brown. with light marks nn the lips, obscure blackish bars on the sides. and the abdomen black blotched with yellowish white. The interior of the mouth, displayed when the snake is about to strike, is cottony white. This serpent exists in large numbers from southern Indiana and south eastern Virginia to the Rio Grande in swamps, marshes, on overflowed lands, and along rivers and bayous, where it is fond of lying in the sun shine upon banks, tussocks, driftwood, or bushes and trees overhanging the water. It never goes far away from such places, and is really a water- • snake; its food is mainly frogs and fishes. When
disturbed it may escape by swimming, but is quite as likely to turn and light fearlessly. It is one of the toast virulent and deadly of all American serpents, but fortunately it does not wander into places where men usually go, except in the irrigated rice fields, where it is greatly dreaded. In captivity it is one of the most un tamable and ferocious of known reptiles. It pro duces eight or ten young annually in midsummer, all fully prepared for offense or defense. The moccasin is 'mimicked' by the quite harmless water-snake Natrix, which, however, is usually much smaller, has a narrower. less triangular and forbidding head, and may always be distinguished by the double row of scales on the under side of the tail. Consult Stejneger, _Innaol Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1893 (Washing ton, 1895). Compare COPPERHEAD; RATTLE SNAKE.