" When I was collecting specimens ot plants and animals in Zacatecas," recently said Dr. Maximilian Schumann to a reporter, " 1 had au experience with rattlesnaki s which came ni ar being the death of me. I had gone a day's journey on horseback from the ciiy of Zac atecas to the south-east, to examine some old Toltec ruins there. These known as the Quemada Ruins. They are verv extensive. 1 got there late at night. 1 had shot a couple oF does on the way, and had thrown them across my pack animal. On my arrival within the ruins I lit a lire to get my supper, after which I spread my blankets and In the morniug when 1 woke up 1 thfew my hand outside the blanket, and it almost tbuched a big poisonous rattlesnake. les<aped by the merest chance. Looking toward my fet t. what was my astonishmennt to aeerattlesakeffell over thi* blankets There were no less thin six of them, besides the one which had so ri&riowly missed my band. The reptilis were not the crotalus horridus, or diamond crotalus known in California, but the crotalus milarius found ia the hot regions. They are very peisonoug. When 1 lit my Ore in the evening I could not see the snakes, which, 1 presume, had crept along the wall. The altitude of the Zacatecas and the obi ruins is between 7,000 and 8,000 feet,and it gets quite culd at night. My fire was what undoubtedly attracted tbem, When they got out towards it they found my bed, and, dis cerning the warm blankets, crawled upon them and went to sleep. I have always thought it was almost miraculous that 1 es caped being bitten did not want the snakes, having already mL I wanted, 1 killed tbem, and nailed them an to the adobe wall, with my card on each. The lizards and other reptiles which I got there 1 galtrd away in casks aud forwarded to Europe. "It is a general belief i.mong the Indians, notably amoL'g the Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws in the ludian territory, where T was for a time, that if one is bitten by a rattlesnake all he has to do to prevent fatality is to eat the .-•nake. But I npver discovered any virtue iu this. 