Journal of Travel and Natural History 260 



THE JARARACA. 



THE Jararaca {Bdhrops Ncuwicdii, Spix.) is the substitute of 

 the rattlesnake in Brazil. About Rio it is frequently met 

 with in plantations, and in bushy and grassy places by the sides of 

 woods, but is scarcely ever found in dense forests. The Rev. 

 Hamlet Clark, in his " Letters Home," gives an account of his first 

 introduction to it, which may serve for that of the reader too : 



" We were riding slowly along in single file, our guide leading, when, as we 

 passed a broken horizontal limb of a tree, close to the side of the path, all at 

 once he woke up into active life. He was off his mule in a trice, handed me (I 

 was next in file) the rein and his whip, had cut down and whittled clean a cane 

 sapling, and then with all his force whack came the cane on the broken branch ! 

 Now we knew what the man was after. At once there uncoiled itself and fell 

 to the ground a splendid serpent (the man said 9 feet long, we thought not 

 quite so much), the deadliest serpent known here. He was sleeping, twisted 

 round the branch in the sunshine, black and bright yellow, very hideous in its 

 beauty. A villainous flat broad head, made uglier by a thin neck, snapped at 

 us in every direction as we stood round it, and a single snap that hit its mark 

 would have been certain and ^.peedy death to man or beast." 



Deadly enough its bite certainly is, but not quite so invariably 

 fatal as Mr Clark supposed. People are said to have died from it 

 within the space of two or three minutes after having been bitten, 

 but more generally they survive for ten or twelve hours, and many 

 recover entirely or rather do not die, but their constitution is 

 almost always broken, and they suffer much from ulcerated limbs. 



Gardiner in his "Travels in the Interior of Brazil" mentions the 

 case of a female slave, about thirty-two years of age, and the 

 mother of four children, who, whilst weeding Indian corn on a 

 plantation, about eight miles distant from the house, was bitten by 

 a Jararaca on the right hand, between the bones of the forefinger 

 and thumb. He describes both the symptoms and the treatment. 

 The accident took place about eight o'clock in the morning, 

 and immediately after she left to return home, but only reached 

 half way when she was obliged to lie down from excessive pain 

 and exhaustion. At this time she said the feeling of thirst was 

 very great. Some slaves belonging to the estate to which she 

 belonged happened to be near; one of them rode off to inform 

 the manager. When he arrived he found the arm much swollen 

 up to the shoulder, beneath which he applied a ligature. From a 



