*' TRIGONOCEPHALUS LANCEOLATUS." 47 



The fangs of the Trigonocephalus are extremely fine and 

 brittle, so much so, that sometimes they break off short in 

 the wound, and verj'- often have to be drawn out or cut out 

 of the flesh. The negroes say that after a snake has spent its 

 energy in biting a person he dies; but there can be no doubt 

 that, as in other ViiDerformes^ when a poison fang is broken, 

 one of the reserve fangs becomes attached to the maxilla, 

 and is soon functional. 



At my first interview with the colonial surgeon of St. 

 Lucia, my friend Dr. C. Dennehy, I asked him if the snakes 

 were as bad as represented ; and he laughed the idea to 

 scorn, showing me at the same time a bundle of serpent 

 fangs, about twenty in number, and remarking that they 

 were good for vaccinating negro children, but the points of 

 most of them were injured ; he also suggested that with a 

 little manipulation they could be made useful as hypo- 

 dermic needles in case of need. 



The negroes of these islands have no fear of the Fer-de- 

 lance if they possess a small walking-stick. He is very 

 easily killed, for the lightest tap dislocates the vertebral 

 column and renders him incapable of leaping. So little fear 

 indeed have they of him, that when, about fourteen years 

 ago, the then governor of St. Lucia offered a reward of 4<^. 

 for every serpent's head, many negroes caught them alive 

 and bred young families of snakes for the sake of the re- 

 ward, and thereby made moderate fortunes. Needless to 

 say, the reward had to be abolished very soon, for serpents 

 are extraordinarily prolific, bringing forth seldom less than 

 100, and often as many as 200 at a birth. The female Fer- 

 de-lance has not the credit of being particularly fond of her 

 offspring, and her behaviour to them in their helpless in- 

 fancy is worthy of record. She generally selects a fairly 

 open or cleared space for her lying-in chamber, a mountain 



