352 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1893. 



there, is poisonous or not, and the Museum is asked to decide bets 

 made by persons taking opposite sides on this question. 



The cause of this diversity of opinion is usually that the person 

 defending the character of tlie Harlequin Snake, by quoting cases in 

 which the bitten persons did not suffer any more injury than if they 

 had been bitten by an ordinary gartersnake, has mistaken the identity 

 of the snake and confounded the really poisonous Harlequin Snake, or 

 Flaps, with one or the other of two or three entirely innocent snakes 

 which resemble it greatly in color and which inhabit the same locality. 

 It is a remarkable tact that this curious imitation or "mimicry" of the 

 gaily colored Elapn by one or more harmless species takes place almost 

 throughout the range of the former. So close is the resemblance in 

 some instances that even alleged experts have been deceived. 



On the other hand, it appears that some, at least, of the species of 

 Elaps are of a temperament so gentle that they only use their weapon 

 in very extreme cases. Prince Max von Wied seems to have been the 

 first to have raised the question as to the venomous character of two 

 Brazilian members of the genus {Elaps coraUiiiits and Ekq)s marq/ravii), 

 for he states* that he used to carry them about his person and that 

 they never even attempted to bite. The prince can not well be sus- 

 pected of mistaking the species, f(n^ not only was he an expert herpeto- 

 logist, but he described and figured them both most accurately and 

 minutely. Our own well-known Elaps fulvius has a defender of no less 

 high standing among the students of reptiles, Mr. Holbrook, the South 

 Carolinian author of the monumental "North American Herpetology," 

 printed in five sumptuous quarto volumes, who statest that the indi- 

 viduals he ha<l seen had been of a very mild character, and could not 

 be induced to bite under any provocation whatever. "Indeed," he 

 remarks, "although possessed of poisonous fangs, they are universally 

 regarded as innocent snakes, and are constantly handled with impunity, 

 never to my knowledge having injured any one."| 



The "instruments of destruction" (which he refers to in the same 

 paragraph) are the hollow fangs, fastened, one on each side of the upper 

 jaw, to the anterior end of the maxillary bone. It will be seen that this 

 is an arrangement exactly the reverse of what obtains in the opistoglyph 

 snakes of the previous chapter, hence the genus Elaps and its allies 

 are known as proieroglyphs.^ The fang being at the front of the mouth 

 makes it much more effective as a weapon — in the opistoglyphs it can 

 even hardly be regarded as such — aLd in it will be shown that the 

 little beauty is fully capable of using it when required. 



The following case is a celebrated one, and in many respects highly 



* Beitr. Naturg. Brasil, i, p. 402 (1825). 

 t N. Am. Herpet., iii, 2 ed., pp. 49-52 (1842). 



} LeConte's statement to the same effect (Southern Med. Surg. Jonni., ix, 1853, 

 J). 652) is scarcely more than a copy of Holbrook's. 



(ji From the Greek nfiunpug (proteros), anterior: j/ro?/ (glyphe), a groove. 



