OPHIDIAN NOMENCLATURE, ETC. 4x9 



coloured ' Bushmaster ; so now in imagination we add 

 indigo, blue, green, etc., to the 'fearful beauty.' Mean- 

 while other writers on Brazil introduce it as the Surucuru, 

 Sorococo, Couroucoucou, Souroucoucou, Surukuku, and 

 similar names, varied only by a transposition of letters and the 

 addition of accents. Tschudi mentions it under its scientific 

 name, LacJiesis rhoniheata, the ' Flammon' in Peru.' Sulivan,^ 

 who, like Waterton, rambled in South America, tells us 'the 

 Couni Couchi or Bushmaster is the most dreaded of all 

 the South America serpents ; and, as his name implies, 

 he roams absolute master of the forest. They do not fly 

 from man, but will even pursue and attack him. They 

 are fat, clumsy-looking animals, about four' (not fourteen) 

 ' feet long, and nearly as thick as a man's arm. They strike 

 with immense force.' A man had been bitten in the thigh 

 and died, and 'the wound was as if two four-inch nails 

 had been driven into the flesh. So long are the fangs, 

 and so deep the wounds, that there is no hope of being 

 cured.' P. H. Gosse quotes Sulivan regarding the enormous 

 fangs, both of these latter writers judiciously omitting the 

 ' rainbow ' colouring. 



Most snakes, even the dingiest, occasionally display an 

 iridescence which is certainly beautiful ; and Waterton 

 may have seen his CounicouchI when the sun lighted up 

 the recently-renewed epidermis and showed him off in 

 unusual brilliance ; only, unfortunately, the copyists have 

 imagined the greens and crimsons and blues of the rainbow, 

 and rendered it a tedious business to poor patient plodders 



^ Travels in Peru. London, 1847. 



^ Rambles and Scrambles in Esseqtiibo. London, 1 85 2. 



