Dwight Baker, Age 11, Of Des Moines, Ia.,

How do baby rattlesnakes get born?

Maybe you avoid snakes, dust in case they might be dangerous. But most snakes are even more eager to avoid people. Herpetologists have a trying tine studying the private lives of their snakes. And to a mother rattlesnake, the birth of her babies is a very private event indeed.

Herpetologists have observed the secret ways of many of our rattlesnakes, but many details are still unknown to us. Family life begins  when Mr. Rattler wakes from hibernation in the spring. He goes courting, and mrs. Rattler gives birth to her babies in late summer or fall. Most snakes lay eggs, but all the rattlers give birth to live youngsters.

Every snake starts from an egg cell. A female cell is fertilized by a male cell from the father snake. The fertilized egg is an embryo which begins to develop. In an egg laying snake, each embryo is wrapped in layers of white webbing. The mother lays her clutch of soft shelled eggs when the embryos are only partly developed. They continue to develop in their shells until the youngsters are ready to hatch.

Mrs. Rattler keeps her embryos inside her body until the youngsters are fully developed. Then she seeks a secret hiding place. Her first born squeezes out into the world from an opening at the base of her tail. He is packaged not in a white egg shell, but in a bag of transparent skin. He may stay inside his cellophane shell from a minute to an hour. Mama rests between each birth, and there are about a dozen youngsters in an average litter.

The birth of a live snake is different (from, say, the birth of a kitten. The Mother cat nourishes the developing embryo from her body. Experts think that something like this may happen in certain of the live bearing snakes. But in most cases, the snake embryo is not nourished from the body of the mother snake. It is sealed in its shiny package, much as an egg is sealed in its white shell. In this state, the embryo stays inside the mother until it is fully developed. Then the little package is born, and soon the lively young snake wriggles out of his wrapping to face the world.

Mrs. Rattler is not smart enough to feel much affection for her youngsters. When they are all borne she goes her way, and the spry little youngsters are ab1e to care  for themselves. They already have miniature poison glands, and the snaky creatures are ready to bite. A dab from a new born rattler is very painful, though it is not as painful as the bite of an adult snake.