31G nrilMA, /?>■ I'EOPLE AXD PRODUCTIONS. 



finger and thumb. The pulsations of the lieart indicate the proper spot to he opened. 

 The snake dies quietly, and it may be presumed painlessly, of exhaustion in from 10 

 to 20 minutes, and can then be slit up and eviscerated. Coil the body now, belly 

 up])ermost, in a proper sized bottle and fill with spirit, rotating the bottle obliquely 

 to get rid of air from between the coils. Previous to coiling, wash the snake in spii-its 

 to cleanse it of blood, mucous, etc., and fill up with spirits 20 to 60 over proof. If 

 a large snake, change the spirits in 24 hours, and tliis spirit will do again for pre- 

 liminary use in the case of another specimen. All snakes, lizards, bats, and small 

 mammals, should have the abdomen slit up to allow the spirit to penetrate rapidly, 

 but only the large ones need be eviscerated. In the interior of the bottle, in the 

 space within the folds of the snake, lizards, frogs, or other animals may be stowed to 

 economise space ; but the spirit must be string. Brandy or gin is altogether too 

 weak. The stoppers should be smeared with grease, luted down with soft wax and 

 fastened with rag. 



Antldutes to snalce poison. — With the sole exception perhaps of the vexed subject 

 of unfulfilled prophecy, nothing has more fascinated men's minds than the question of 

 snake bite and its antidote, and on no other suliject has more utter rubbish and nonsense 

 been written. Poor credulous beings, who hardly know which end of a snake it is which 

 is poisonous, will all the same assure you of the infallibility of some nostrum or other 

 they are in jjossession of, and the ' evidences ' produced in the one case are fully as 

 unconvincing and trumpery as those used to elucidate the other. Herbs and vegetable 

 messes without number, brandy in which the gall bladders of snakes have been steeped, 

 blue stone, acids, alkalis, alchohol, laudanum, cautery, excision, suction, ligature, elec- 

 tricity, and prayer, have all their particular advocates, but the whole results may be 

 summed up in one word — Bosh ! 



Instantaneously sucking and ligaturing the wound may arrest the efi'ects of the 

 bite of a poisonous snake, but the chances of effectual intervention are small, as the 

 three oases presently quoted will show.' Antidotes to the poison there are none, 

 thoTigh dift'usible stimuli, as ammonia and brandy in moderate doses, may he useful 

 in oases where tlie results of the bite stop short of death ; while all violent measures, 

 compulsory locomotion, beating the patient, and the like are simply pernicious. 



Family Hydrophidae. 



Body strongly compressed posteriorly, and tail paddle-shaped. Loreal none. 

 Venom fang small. 



The sea snakes are wholly marine or estuarine, and are incapable of progression 

 on land, vivi])arous and deadly without exception. They abound on the coast of 

 Burma, but the precise number of species met with has not been ascertained. A 

 brief conspectus of species is therefore here given to facilitate theii' recognition. The 

 colouration is very similar in the majority of species, being a yellowish ground colour, 

 banded with dark grey or blackish. Their cliief difference lies in the proportions, 

 slender or the reverse, of the head, neck and body, and this is difficult to convey 

 without a figure. The colouration too varies with age, being much brighter and the 

 markings more distinct in the young than in aged indi\-iduals. The scales too in the 

 young of many species are smooth, which in the a<lult are keeled or tubercuhir, so 

 that it requires a large series of a species and its allied forms to satisfactorily deter- 

 mine these snakes. 



In Burma vast numbers arc caught on the coast in tidal inelosures made for fish, 

 as at Mergui, or in the ' creels ' or long tiaskets which are placed in tidal rivers, as 

 below Bassein at Nga-poo-tau, into wliich fish, Crustacea, snakes and oven porpoises 

 (as I am told), are swept hj the force of the tide, which ' creels ' are visited and 

 emptied at slack water; and these localities are admirable ones for collecting the rich 

 and varied tribute of the sea, of which so much remains yet to be learned. 



Platduus, LafreiUe. 



Shields of head normal, that is, as in c(ilubrlne land snakes. Scales imbricate 

 smooth. Tail with two series of sul)oaudaIs. 



' Sue pii-ii 321. 



