chunkhead n esp NY, CT
= copperhead snake n 1.
1794 Amer. Minerva (New York NY) 27 Sept [2]/3, [Advt:] At the Menage of living animals and Birds . . Are to be seen every day, the following lving [sic] objects, viz. . . one Rattle Snakes mate (or more commonly called Chunk Head, Copper Head or Pilot to the Rattle Snake) the Serpents were taken in New-Jersey. 1796 CT Jrl. (New Haven) 31 Aug [3]/4, [Advt:] Wanted two or three living Rattle-Snakes, a live Chunk Head, for which a high price will be given. 1818 Amer. Jrl. Science 1.84, Scytalus Cupreus or Copper-head Snake . . is known by a variety of names in different parts of the State of New York: . . copper-head, copper-snake, chunk-head, [etc]. 1863 in 1920 Colonial Soc. MA Pub. 20.232, If we add that our political Copperheads, like their reptile type, are so “slow and clumsy in their motions” that they deserve the additional cognomina of “Chunk-heads” and “Deaf-adders,” we shall have made the analogy complete. 1903 Sun (NY NY) 13 Sept 8/2, The copperhead seems to be the commonest snake in the neighborhood [=Putnam Co. NY]. They are called chunkheads by the natives and are dreaded at this time of the year, when they are mating. 1916 Amer. Museum Jrl. 16.129 CT, When one of my friends and I were snake-hunting in Connecticut, we stopped for a few moments at a farmhouse along the road to inquire of the farmer living there as to the whereabouts of a den of the “chunkhead”—that being the local name of the copperhead snake. 1931 Brooklyn Daily Times (NY) 20 June 16/1, All over this eastern part of New York State below the Adirondack country is to be found, in occasional swampy, poorly drained districts, the well-known “chunkhead,” or as some of us call him, the “copperhead.” 1935 Hartford Courant (CT) 2 Sept 6/4, Now for our two poisonous snakes, the rattler and the copperhead or chunkhead. 2011 in 2019 DARE File—Internet wNC, Copperhead is usually a chunk head. Garter snake is a garden snake.