490 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



SOMETHING ABOUT SNAKES. 



By C. T. BUCKLAND, F. Z. S. 



IN writing about snakes an apology must "be offered for begin- 

 ning with what may seem to be a boastful statement ; but it is 

 unavoidable, as it is my chief justification for putting pen to paper. 



Therefore it must be avowed that, to the best of my knowledge 

 and belief, the snakes have never had a worse enemy than they 

 have found in me, and it came to pass in this way. In the year 

 1856-'57, being one of the secretaries to the Government of Ben- 

 gal, I obtained the consent of the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Fred- 

 erick Halliday, to the issue of an order authorizing the payment 

 of a reward of sixpence for every poisonous snake whose dead 

 body should be produced before a district magistrate in Bengal. 

 This was the beginning of the campaign against snakes in India, 

 and my hand was responsible for it. It was subsequently backed 

 up by the influence of Sir Joseph Fayrer, the greatest living au- 

 thority on snakes. From that day forth, with occasional inter- 

 missions, the system of giving rewards has spread from province 

 to province, until the total number of venomous snakes killed 

 throughout British India in 1886 exceeded four hundred thousand. 

 If it be admitted that, during the last thirty years, the average 

 number of poisonous snakes killed has amounted to only one hun- 

 dred thousand per annum, a child can calculate how many million 

 snakes have to denounce me as the originator of the mischief and 

 crusade against them. 



"Why, it may be asked, was such wrath against snakes kindled 

 in me ? The explanation is peculiar, and may not be the true one, 

 but it happened that when I was a very small child, my mother's 

 brother, the Rev. Matthew Arnold,* was bitten on the ankle by a 

 viper at Slatwood's, in the Isle of Wight, and the story went that 

 his life was in great danger, the whole of his body turning black 

 gradually from the feet upward, until the blackness came as high 

 as his heart, when it stopped and began to abate, until it gradu- 

 ally disappeared as the virulence of the poison wore out. This 

 story made a grave impression on the juvenile minds of myself 

 and my brothers. Not long afterward we were taken to stay with 

 'an aunt at Eaglehurst, in Hampshire, and somewhere down on 

 the beach, toward Calshot Castle, I found a snake lying on the 

 grass, which, being an " animosus inf ans," I picked up and brought 

 to our nurse. Luckily for me the snake was dead, but according 

 to the fashion of those days I was afterward soundly flogged, to 

 teach me not to play with snakes again. From either of these 



* Brother of Dr. Arnold. 



