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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Aug. 1, 1867. 



and strangers as a caution against meddling with 

 snakes and adders ; I remember in particular a 

 churchyard in one of the lonely villages of Norfolk, 

 in which was a tombstone, ornamented with the 

 sculpture of a snake with its tail in its mouth, form- 

 ing a ring. Doubtless it was meant as an emblem 

 of eternity, but there it was looked upon as proof 

 positive of the mode of the man's death, and we 

 children used to look at it with awe, while one of 

 our elders related the story of the man gathering 

 wood, when an adder stung him, &c. As there is, 

 no doubt, some residuum of truth, even in the 

 wildest legends, we may believe that death from the 

 bite of a viper is not an utterly unknown circum- 

 stance. The physical constitution of the victim, 

 the state of his health at the time, the heat of the 

 weather, will no doubt affect the case. Very likely 

 a person of feeble constitution, whose blood was in 

 an impure state, and who chanced to get bitten in 

 the sultry days of July and August, might succumb 

 to the venomous bite ; otherwise I should say not. 

 Any instances brought forward on either side of the 

 question must necessarily be interesting. Erom one 

 or two accounts I have read, and from the follow- 

 ing, for which I can vouch, it would appear that the 

 venom does not always act in the same way. Mr. 

 Wood mentions a case in which there was intense 

 pain and fever ; in the following instance there was 

 little of either. 



I was out entomologising a few days ago when I 

 saw a very beautiful specimen of Pelias Bents, about 

 half grown. Meeting a brother of the net a few 

 minutes afterwards, I mentioned it to him. "Of 

 course you killed it ? " said he. " No, I did not ; I 

 very seldom do." " Perhaps you were never bitten 

 by one ? or else you always would." No, I had 

 not. I had kept them in confinement, and I am 

 always shy of killing any creature that I have watched 

 and studied. Upon which he told me that he had, 

 and the circumstances and consequences were as 

 follow :— He was out butterfly hunting, and caught 

 a viper in his net as it was gliding over the ground : 

 not knowing then the difference between vipers and 

 snakes, he was not at all afraid of it, but handled it 

 repeatedly, and when he reached home, placed it on 

 the table to watch its movements. He took it up 

 several times, till at last it turned its head sharply 

 round, and bit him on the forefinger of the right 

 hand. Still he took no notice, and continued hand- 

 ling it as before ; though he was careful now to lay 

 hold of it closer to the head. Shortly, however, he 

 felt a curious drowsy sensation stealing over him, 

 and told his friends of it, but they attributed it to 

 fancy. But it was not long before he became 

 seriously ill, his mind wandered, they put him in bed, 

 and sent for a medical man. No olive oil was ap- 

 plied, and the priucipal thing given him was neat 

 brandy in occasional doses. The object of this 

 ■was to cause a re-action from the great weakness 



which ensued ; he felt utterly prostrated, and 

 needed all that could be given him to restore his 

 physical strength. He lay in bed a fortnight, no 

 fever ensued, and more curiously no pain, nothing 

 but excessive weakness, and, immediately after the 

 bite, insensibility and delirium. The hand, arm, 

 and side as low as the hip were immensely swollen, 

 and almost black ; the two former were frequently 

 bathed in hot water. 



Having gone through this little experience, he 

 always made it a rule to kill a viper when he had 

 the opportunity ; not because there was any danger 

 of its attacking anybody, he knew it was a very 

 timid creature, but then "you might tread on one." 

 I cannot agree with him, though I can make every 

 allowance for his feelings : vipers, like all other 

 created beings, have their allotted work to perform, 

 and they are neither sufficiently numerous nor 

 wautonly aggressive, to warrant our endeavours to 

 exterminate them . 



I mentioned olive oil to him, and also sucking out 

 the poison, but, as he remarked, and with great 

 plausibility too, one pulsation — the very first — 

 carries the poison into the system, and unless it can 

 be followed up there by some antidote, in the same 

 way that some one has lately been advising nitrate 

 of silver in the case of hydrophobia, I do not see 

 how its ill effects can possibly be stopped. Pro- 

 bably death may be prevented, and pain or fever 1 

 assuaged by applying remedies in this manner ; but 

 a certain amount of suffering, more or less severe, 

 must ensue. Since writing the above I have had a 

 conversation with a gentleman, in which he men- 

 tioned that sportsmen's dogs are occasionally killed 

 by vipers ; he had lost two very valuable ones him- 

 self. Young ones generally die, but occasionally 

 recover ; old ones seldom fall victims. One that he 

 had had some years had been bitten twice when 

 young, but as it grew older it became an adept iu 

 killing its foes: it used to spring upon them, all 

 four feet coming down at once, and then with its 

 head up in the air, trample them to death. 



Henry Ullyett. 



Nightingale Ereak. — I found last week 

 a whole nest of canaries disappear iu about three 

 days. I could not account for them, as they hung 

 against a wall, being [too young to get out of 

 the nest. A few days after, another nest hatched, 

 and next morning we found the hen canary and a 

 nightingale in fierce combat, but the nightingale 

 took the young bird, and then commenced a regular 

 chase with the nightingales (of which there were 

 three) to get [the youngster, which of course they 

 soon killed, and before I could get it away, the head 

 was half gone. Do nightingales usually eat young 

 buds ?— Charles Eudd. 



