396 SNAKES. 



A snake mentioned by a number of writers and travellers 

 as the Jararaca had plagued me long and terribly, from the 

 contradictory accounts of it. What is this Jararaca ? And is 

 it the same as the larraracca or the Ibiracua or the Iraracit- 

 assa or the SJiiraraca^ or several other nearly similar names 

 which appear in books about Brazil. Had one gone straight 

 to Gray or Dumeril, the recognised and scientific name for 

 it could have been ascertained at once ; but we do not so 

 readily find out which are the right books to pounce upon, 

 nor had I in those days learnt the necessity of trusting to 

 scientific w^orks only for the unravelling of travellers' tales ; 

 but I hunted in dictionaries and encyclopedias and travels 

 and those old authors again, but with no better success. 



In Wallace's Travels in the Amazon we read : ' Hansringf 

 up under the eaves of our shed was a dried head of a snake 

 which had been killed a short time before. It was 2. Jararaca, 

 a species of CraspedocepJialus^ and must have been of formid- 

 able size, for its poison fangs, four in number, were nearly 

 an inch long. . . . The bite of such would be certain 

 death.' 



With this picture oi a large Brazilian serpent, drawn by 

 such an authority as Wallace, one read in Ogilvy's dictionary : 

 'Jararaca. A species of serpent in America, seldom 

 exceeding eighteen inches in length ; having prominent veins 

 on the head, and of a dusky, brov.mish colour, variegated with 

 red and black spots.' 



Then Webster — evidently from the same source: 'A 

 species of serpent in America,' — word for word the same as 

 far as the black spots—' very- poisonous. Native name in 

 Surinam.' And in a newer edition, Webster, in addition, 



