UTILITY AND DESTRUCTION OF EEPTILES. 121 



The serpent does not appear to have any natural limit of 

 growth, and we are therefore not authorized wholly to discredit 

 the evidence of ancient naturalists in regard to the extraordinary 

 dimensions which these reptiles are said by them to have some- 



a serpent near Aleppo took place a hundred years before his time. In 

 Palestine, the climate, the thinness of population, the multitude of insects and 

 of lizards, in fact all circumstances seem very favorable to the multiplication 

 of serpents, but the venomous species, at least, are extremely rare, if at all 

 known, in that country. I have, however, been assured by persons very fami- 

 liar with Mount Lebanon, that cases of poisoning from the bite of snakes had 

 occurred, within a few years, near Hasbeiyeh and at other places on the 

 southern declivities of Lebanon and Hermon, and I am informed that vipers 

 are not uncommon about the Pools of Solomon near Jerusalem. In Egypt, 

 the cobra, the asp, and the cerastes are as numerous as ever, and are much 

 dreaded by all the natives except the professional snake-charmers. 



The recent great multiplication of vipers in some parts of France is a sin- 

 gular and startling fact. Toussenel, quoting from official documents, states 

 that upon the offer of a reward of fifty centimes, or ten cents, a head, twelve 

 thousand vipers were brought to the prefect of a single department, and that 

 in 1859 fifteen hundred snakes and twenty quarts of snakes' eggs were found 

 under a farm-house hearthstone. The granary, the stables, the roof, the very 

 beds swarmed with serpents, and the family were obliged to abandon its habi- 

 tation. Dr. Viaugrandmarais, of Nantes, reported to the prefect of his depart- 

 ment more than two hundred recent cases of viper bites, twenty-four of which 

 proved fatal. — Tristia, p. 176 et seq. According to the Journal des Debats for 

 Oct. 1st, 1867, the Department of the C6te d'Or paid in the year 1866 eighteen 

 thousand francs for the destruction of vipers. The reward was thirty centimes 

 a head, and consequently the number killed was about sixty thousand. A 

 friend residing in the department informs me that it was strongly suspected 

 that many of these snakes were imported from other departments for the sake 

 of the premium. 



In Nature for 1870 and 1871 we are told that the number of deaths from the 

 bites of venomous serpents in the Bengal Presidency, in the year 1869, was 

 11,416, and that in the whole of British India not less than 40,000 human lives 

 are annually lost from this cause. In one small department, a reward of from 

 three to six pence a head for poisonous serpents brought in 1,200 a day, and 

 in two months the government paid £10,000 sterling for their destruction. 



The statistics for the year 1877 show that there were as many as 19,695 per- 

 sons killed by wild beasts and snakes in British India in that year. Tigers 

 head the list. There were 819 persons killed by tigers, 564 by wolves, 200 by 

 leopards, 85 by bears, 46 by elephants, 24 by hyenas, 1,180 by other wild beasts. 

 The other 16,777 victims were killed by snakes. These various enemies of 

 mankind killed also 53,197 cattle in the year. The measures adopted in India 

 for exterminating wild beasts and venomous snakes, resulted in the destruction 

 of 22,851 of the former and 127,295 of the latter in the course of the year, and 

 for this deliverance from them rewards were paid to the amount of £10,301. 



