66 4? On Snakes, their Fangs, 



this picture/' " Pictoribus atque poetis," &c. The mouth of 

 the rattlesnake is wide open, and the fangs are the first things 

 to attract the inspector's notice, being by far the most con- 

 spicuous feature in it. There they are on elephant [folio], 

 with their points curved upwards ! The artist, in his notes on 

 the rattlesnake, addressed to Thomas Stuart Traill, M.D., 

 and inserted in Jameson's Journal, says, that he confined a 

 rattlesnake for three years in a cage. Did he never once get 

 a sight of the fangs all that time ? I will allow any body the 

 range of the whole world ; and if he can produce one single 

 solitary fang of any snake, great or small, with the point 

 turned upwards, I will submit to be sent to the treadmill for 

 three years. All fangs of snakes are curved somewhat in the 

 shape of a scythe, with their points downwards ; and we see 

 clearly that their position in the mouth, and the manner in 

 which they convey the poison, require that their points should 

 be curved downwards. 



Mr. Taylor further informs us that " black snakes are 

 called racers, from their occasionally chasing men with great 

 ferocity." [p. 541.] Chase argues pursuit and retreat: now, 

 I affirm that snakes never chase men, nor, indeed, any other 

 animals. 



It often happens that a man turns round and runs away 

 when he has come suddenly upon a snake, " retroque 

 pedem cum voce repressit ; " while the disturbed snake itself 

 is obliged, through necessity (as I shall show by and by), to 

 glide in the same path which the man has taken. The man, 

 seeing this, runs away at double speed, fancying that he is 

 pursued by the snake. If he would only have the courage to 

 stand still, and would step sideways on the snake's coming up 

 to him, he might rest secure that it would not attack him, 

 provided that he, on his part, abstained from provoking it. 

 I once laid hold of a serpent's tail as it was crossing the path 

 before me ; and then, as might be expected, it immediately 

 raised itself and came at me, and I had to fight it for my 

 pains ; but, until I had seized its tail, it showed no inclination 

 whatever either to chase me or to attack me. Had I been 

 ignorant of the habits of snakes, I should certainlv have 

 taken myself off as soon as I perceived that it was approach- 

 ing the place where I was standing ; and then I should have 

 told everybody that I had been pursued by a serpent, and 

 had had to run for my life. This snake was ten feet long. 



In 1820, on my way to the interior of Guiana, I accom- 

 panied Mr. President Rough to the hospitable house of Ar- 

 chibald Edmonstone, Esq., in Hobbabba Creek, which falls 

 into the river Demerara. We had just sat down to breakfast. 



