56o SNAKES. 



spot where the pain directs. A case was recorded in a 

 paper of a cobra having been struck by a bullet, and Instantly 

 twisting round to bite itself on the spot, and presently dying ; 

 and this was called 'snake suicide.' It died in part perhaps 

 from the bullet, and partly from Its own venom, which 

 injected In anger would be powerful. Several similar cases 

 have come to my notice, where snakes have thus attacked 

 themselves when the instinct has been evidently to strike 

 the caiise of pain. 



In vol. xxli. of Nature, p. 40, the case recorded by Mr. S. 

 H. Wintle from Tasmania will, I think, bear this explanation. 

 He pinned a 'black snake' (probably Pseudechis porpJiy- 

 riacus) to the ground with a forked stick by the middle of the 

 body ; Instantly coiling round the stick, the angry snake 

 turned and buried Its fangs in itself, making the part wet 

 with viscid slime. Hardly had It done this than the coils 

 relaxed ; a perceptible quiver ran through Its body ; in a 

 few moments more It lay extended and motionless, open 

 mouthed and gasping, and in three minutes was dead. Mr. 

 Wintle examined the snake after death, and found the body 

 ' bloodless,' as though the poison had destroyed the colouring 

 matter. He tried the blood on a mouse, which died In five 

 minutes ; and on a lizard, which died in fourteen minutes. 



If the saliva of an angrily-excited human being or a dog 

 be more injurious at one time than another, how much 

 more so that of a venomous serpent. The flow would be 

 greater, the character more noxious. It seems therefore a 

 mere question of power or virulence, the greater over the 

 less. In some cases one serpent might kill another, in ' 

 other cases not. 



