Rattler Tale
Painting by William Bartram, Private Collection
One of America’s first great artist-naturalists, William Bartram encountered this timber rattler while exploring the backwoods of colonial New Jersey with his botanist father, John Bartram. During his years of wilderness wandering William ran up on many a rattler: “I have seen them about six feet [2 meters] in length, and . . . large as a man’s leg.”
