White Rattlesnake

Crotalus mitchellii, (Cope)

Colouration: Grayish-yellow or pinkish, the body profusely sprinkled with brown dots. Upon the back these dots are crowded into the form of a series of blotches, which, although not exactly rhomb-like in character, impart much the same effect as the pattern of the Western diamond rattlesnake. This similarity is heightened by the tail; this is white with black rings. There is a yellowish band from in front of the eye to the angle of the mouth.
Dimensions: The length of a mature specimen seems to be about three and a half feet. The conformation of the head and body is like the Western diamond rattlesnake.
Distribution: Desert mountains, though not at a great altitude, of Lower California, southern California, southern Arizona and extreme northwestern Mexico.
Habits: But one living example has been observed by the writer. It was a nervous snake, and kept its pale, straw-coloured rattle always ready to be shaken upon the slightest disturbance. It steadily refused food and lived but a few months. Observations upon a single specimen of a creature so far removed from its environment are of but little value. To describe such a snake as stupid would be but to theorise over the actions of a wild brute suddenly removed from everything natural, stunned and grieving from the change. What we frequently regard as "stupidity" on the part of a dumb brute, is its constant longing for liberty, overcoming all ideas of exercise and appetite. Unless we can to a considerable extent copy an animals environments, thence compare the actions of numerous individuals, we cannot with certainty describe habits.

Owing to its pallid colouration, snakes of this species might be confused with pale specimens of the Western diamond rattlesnake, (C. atrox). The similarity, however, is in the whitish colour only. From all the other species of North American Crotalus, the White Rattlesnake differs in an arrangement of the head scales, thus:

The large plate in front of the nostril (anterior nasal) is separated from the nose plate (rostral) by small scales. With the other species of Rattlesnakes it will be observed that the shield in front of the nostril is in contact with the nose plate (rostral).

On most specimens the markings are very obscure, but the writer received one specimen from San Diego County, California, so strongly marked that it was momentarily mistaken for a specimen of the Crotalus atrox--the Western diamond rattlesnake.

A bright red specimen has been taken in Canyon Prieto, not far from Fort Whipple, Arizona. This was given the name pyrrba, by Prof. Cope. As no other specimens have been taken since its capture (1866) it can hardly be considered anything but an individual variation in colour.

Mr. Herbert Brown has given the writer the following note about the species:

"In the Tinajas Altas Range, a small, detached mountain, about 70 miles southwest of here (Yuma), there is a white Rattlesnake. I submitted a specimen to Dr. Van Denburgh, of San Francisco, California. He says it is Crotalus mitcbellii. They are slightly marked with dark across the middle of the back, but otherwise the white or gray is solid. Dr. W. J. McGee to whom I am indebted for the specimen, killed two of them while in the range. He said that when coiled they looked like bunches of white cotton. I believe I have seen them in the Death Valley country."