436 SNAKES. 



case with regard to snakes. When viewed at even a short distance 

 they may all be poisonous or all harmless to the eye of an inexperi- 

 enced rover. 



I have penned down these few notes on the snake-family, not to 

 intimidate the ardent young naturalist, nor to make him fancy that 

 his life is in perpetual danger whilst he is traversing the wilds in far 

 distant countries. On the contrary, I wish to encourage him in his 

 praiseworthy career. 



Our histories of Snakes are as fabulous and incorrect as those of 

 monkeys. Take the following quotation, for example : " All along 

 the swampy banks of the river Niger or Oroonoko, where the sun is 

 hot, the forests thick, and the men but few, the serpents cling 

 amongst the branches of the trees in infinite numbers, and carry on 

 an unceasing war against all other animals in their vicinity." Ro- 

 mantic and absurd assertion ! I myself have been, for weeks together, 

 in those swamps of the river Oroonoko, not merely in an Indian 

 canoe, nor under the protecting canopy of a planter's tent-boat, but 

 absolutely barefooted and up to the knees in water, ranging in 

 anxious expectation, with little fear of danger. The leeches, larger 

 than those of Europe, were troublesome at times ; for they took a 

 fancy to my legs, and caused me to keep a sharp look-out. But as 

 for snakes, I seldom saw them : so I concluded that their carrying 

 on "an unceasing war against all other animals, and their clinging 

 amongst the branches of the trees in infinite numbers," was an 

 imaginary thing, which had no existence saving in the productive 

 brain of him who had given us the strange account. Again, we have 

 stories, as old as the hills over which we roam, of snakes sucking 

 cows, and passing the night in ladies' bedrooms, so that they might 

 conveniently obtain a supper on human milk. Believe me, such 

 absurdities as these deserve no credit, and they only tend to mar 

 our history of the serpent-family. No serpent has ever yet been dis- 

 covered, or ever will be discovered, with a mouth so formed as to 

 enable it to suck the teats of cows or breasts of women. In days 

 gone-by, they tell us, that a king of Elis kept three thousand oxen in 

 one stable, which had not been cleaned out for the space of thirty 

 years. The stench becoming insupportable, a well-known man, by 

 the name of Hercules, contracted with the king to clear away the 



