Crossword-Solution: CASCABEL 8 letters, 6 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 14

Sometimes night suddenly overtook us, for there is scarcely any twilight in this climate; and we then found ourselves dangerously situated, as the Cascabel, or rattle-snake, the Coral, and other vipers armed with poisonous fangs, frequent these scorched and arid haunts, to deposit their eggs in the sand.

Even the wild birds know of this root; the queer paisano (? ground woodpecker) which eats snakes, when wounded by a _vibora de cascabel_, runs into woods, digs up and eats a root of the agave, just like the mongoose; but more than that, goes back, polishes off his enemy, and eats him.

This has been told me by Mexicans who, it may be remarked, are not _always_ reliable.] I have had occasion to prove the efficacy of this mixture in two cases of _cascabel_ bites, one on a buck, the other on a dog; and it occurred to me that the same explanation of its action might be given as above for the platinum salt, viz., the formation of an insoluble iodo compound as with ordinary alkaloids if the snake poison really belongs to this class.

They were, the Negroes told us, 'Dormillons,' or 'Mangrove Cascabel,' a species as yet, I believe, undescribed; and, of course, here considered as very poisonous, owing to their likeness to the true Cascabel, {268} whose deadly fangs are justly dreaded by the Lapo hunter.

For the Cascabel has a fancy for living in the Lapo's burrow, as does the rattlesnake in that of the prairie dog in the Western United States, and in the same friendly and harmless fashion; and is apt, when dug out, to avenge himself and his host by a bite which is fatal in a few hours.