maiden rattlesnake, but he destroyed the sublimity of the fiction by
asserting that on their nuptial night she bit off her husband's nose.

Heckewelder, after remarking that some of the Tuscaroras claim
affinity with the rabbit and the ground hog, says: "I found also that
the Indians, for a similar reason, paid great respect to the
rattlesnake, whom they called their _grandfather_, and would on no
account destroy him. One day, as I was walking with an elderly Indian
on the banks of the Muskingum, I saw a large rattlesnake lying across
the path, which I was going to kill. The Indian immediately forbade my
doing so, 'for,' said he, 'the rattlesnake is grandfather to the
Indians, and is placed here on purpose to guard us, and to give us
warning of impending danger by his rattles, which is the same as if he
were to tell us 'Look about!' 'Now, added he,' if we were to kill one
of those, the others would soon know it, and the whole race would
rise upon us, and bite us.' I observed to him that the white people
were not afraid of this, for they killed all the rattlesnakes they met
with. On this he enquired whether any white man had been bitten by
those animals, and of course I answered in the affirmative. 'No
wonder, then,' he replied, 'you have to blame yourselves for that.
Take care you do not irritate them in our country, they and their
grandchildren are on good terms, and neither will hurt the other.'"

Adair, after killing one which infested the camp of the Seminoles,
found himself in serious danger, whereupon he remarks in a note page
263, that the Seminoles "never kill the rattlesnake."

THE LEGEND OF MOSHUP.

The sound or strait, which divides Nope[A] from the main land and the
islands of Nashawn, was not, in the days of our fathers, so wide as it
is now. The small bays which now indent the northern shore of Nope,
and the slight promontories, which, at intervals of a mile or two, jut
out along its coast of a sun's journey, were then wanting; neither the
one nor the other obtruded on its round and exact outline. The strong
current of waters from the boundless bosom of the Great Lake, sweeping
down between this island and the opposite little islands of Nashawn
and its sisters, has made great encroachments upon the former,
widening to a journey of two hours what was once only the work of one
to perform. My brothers, who are with me from the lands of the
Pawkunnawkuts, know that my words are true. They know that