196 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in a manner that will make a dog leap back in affright. It has no 

 goiter-bag, but the skin of its throat is elastic, and can be made to 

 swell out like that of the East Indian cobra, while its multiplex spines 

 vibrate ominously. The little monster is, nevertheless, one of the 

 most harmless reptiles of the tropics, and subsists on succulent leaves, 

 with occasional entremets of small grubs and insects. In that case, 

 however, Nature has rather overdone its efforts at protective ugli- 

 ness, and the Creoles kill the poor simulator of terrors as the Mexican 

 rustics would a horned toad. 



A plurality of the zoological immigrants of the West Indies seem 

 to have come from Mexico, and it is a suggestive fact that the number 

 of reptiles steadily decreases from west to east. Cuba, with its west- 

 ern headland approaching the east coast of Yucatan, thus came in 

 for a lion's share of lizards, tortoises, and ophidians. 



Hayti, though only one fourth smaller, experienced a seventy- 

 five-per-cent discount, and all natives and travelers agree on the 

 curiosum that there is not a single species of serpent on the island 

 of Porto Rico. Trinidad, with an area of only fifteen hundred 

 square miles, but laved by the giant current of the Orinoco, boasts 

 twenty-eight species of land serpents, besides several pythons and 

 swamp vipers. The Trinidad museum of venomous ophidians does 

 not, however, include the dreaded fer-de-lance, which infests the 

 woods near Samana Bay on the south coast of San Domingo. The 

 Bothrops lanceolatus is larger than a rattlesnake, and its bite, though 

 not always fatal, causes fearful inflammation, but its aggressive dis- 

 position has been greatly exaggerated. Like most venomous ser- 

 pents, it is a sluggish brute, relying on its ability to crouch motion- 

 less till its prey comes in range, then get in a snap bite and shrink 

 back to wait till the virus begins to take effect, and the victim, in 

 its fever spasms, betrays its helplessness by those eccentricities of con- 

 duct which are apt to be misinterpreted by the dupes of the '' serpent- 

 charm " superstition. 



The fer-de-lance is found also on the islands of Martinique and 

 Santa Lucia, where the natives counteract its virus with a decoction 

 of jungle hemlock, and the basis of its grewsome reputation seems to 

 be the fact that it does not warn the intruders of its haunts, after 

 the manner of the cobra or the rattlesnake, but flattens its coils and, 

 with slightly vibrating tail, awaits events. If the unsuspecting 

 traveler should show no sign of hostile intent he may be allowed to 

 pass unharmed within two yards of the coiled matador, but a closer 

 approach is apt to be construed as a challenge, and the vivoron, sud- 

 denly rearing its ugly head, may scare the trespasser into some motion 

 of self-defense — he may lift his foot or brandish his stick in a men- 

 acing manner. If he does he is lost. The lower coils will expand, 



