542 SNAKES. 



time was killed by it. This was in July, at which season 

 these creatures are computed to be in the greatest vigour 

 of their poison ' (1657). 



Another drug which is poison to a venomous snake is tobacco, 

 within the reach of most persons. This, among native 

 remedies, has always been in favour, and we have heard of its 

 efficacy ever since 'the weed' was known to Europeans. 

 Various species of tobacco and its allies are indigenous to 

 most tropical countries, and probably were in use for both 

 man and snake-bites long before civilised nations took such 

 ^comfort in smoking. In classic ages it was believed that 

 human saliva was fatal to vipers, and it is even affirmed 

 that the Hottentots often kill a puff adder by merely 

 spitting upon it. One must infer from this that their saliva 

 is saturated with some drug which they chew ; and from 

 classic authors we might discover that the practice of 

 chewing tobacco, opium, or other drugs obnoxious to snakes, 

 was in use from very early ages. Those classic authors who 

 tell us that human saliva is fatal to snakes had not studied 

 snake nature enough to assign a reason for this, though 

 in all probability a reason did exist. ' Man carries more 

 poison in his mouth than a snake,' said an old Virginian 

 writer, alluding to nicotiiu. ' He can poison a rattlesnake 

 more quickly than it can him.' Nicholson states that it also 

 rapidly affects a cobra, and he recommends it, should you 

 wish to destroy the snake uninjured : ' You have,' he says, 

 ' but to blow into its mouth a drop or two of the oil from a 

 dirty tobacco-pipe.' 



Two young men chopping wood together in Virginia 

 espied a rattlesnake. With a forked stick one of them held 



