Excerpt from The Poisonous Snakes of North America Curator, Department of Reptiles and Batrachians, U. S. National Museum. It is the purpose of the present paper to give in a convenient form a review of our knowledge concerning the poisonous snakes of North America; to make the results of the specialists in the field accessible to a larger public; to bring together in one place a summary of an immense literature very often beyond the reach even of the student; to point out where our knowledge is defective, and to suggest new avenues of research. Many popular errors will be corrected, while others will be disposed of by a simple statement of facts, from which the reader is expected to draw his own conclusions. N o attempt will be made to discuss and controvert the purposely exaggerated stories with which the literature of the day abounds. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.