184 JOURNAL, NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY OF SIAM Vol. I. 
for they do not strike and let go, but continue to hold on, and 
do not relax their grip, until the victim is quite dead. A mouse 
caught in this way dies with extreme rapidity, generally in two 
or three minutes, and beyond a few faint convulsive kicks does not 
struggle at all. The actual paralysing factor in this case is no doubt 
shock. If perchance, from the snake not being sufficiently quick, 
some other part of the animal is caught, such as a limb or the head, 
death is by no means so rapid, and the mouse usually manages to shake 
itself free and escape. The snake then goes off in search of it, but 
appears to have no sense of direction, and in a wild state, if the 
animal had been able to travel any distance before collapsing, would 
certainly not be found. 
Poison. The poison of this snake is almost entirely local in its 
action. It is fatal to small mammals, but can hardly be considered 
dangerous to human beings. I see a fair number of patients who have 
been bitten by this snake every year, and their symptoms vary in inten- 
sity from those with slight swelling round the bitten part and practically 
no pain, to others with considerable swelling and very severe pain, 
General symptoms area entirely absent, except for some occasional 
slight feeling of giddiness, which may be due to a very natural trepida- 
tion on the part of the patient. In my own case, which may be looked 
upon as a severe one, I was bitten in the terminal joint of the right 
thumb whilst incautiously handling the snake. I had seized the it too 
far down the neck, and it was able to turn its head round and bite me. 
Fortunately it could only reach me with one fang, but that one 
went deeply in. The pain was intense and immediate, as if a red hot 
needle had been thrust into me, and it continued with great severity 
for 24 hours. Sleep was impossible without opium. The whole hand 
as far as the wrist swelled rapidly up, and at the actual seat of the 
bite, a small area, as big as a pea, became necrotic and ultimately 
sloughed away. The swelling of the hand subsided within a week, 
but in the thumb itself it persisted much longer, and it was six 
weeks before the wound had healed and I had recovered the full 
use of my hand. Treatment in this case consisted in applying a 
ligature to the base of the thumb until the pain from the con- 
striction became unbearable, and in scarifying the ~wound and 
rubbing in crystals of permanganate of potash. Owing to the 
difficulty, however, of operating upon myself with my left hand, 
