SNAKES. 441 



open, and the fangs are the first things to attract the inspector's 

 notice, being by far the most conspicuous feature in it. There they 

 are on elephant [folio], with their points curved upwards! The 

 artist, in his notes on the rattlesnake, addressed to Thomas Stuart 

 Traill, M.D., and inserted in Jameson's "Journal," says, that he con- 

 fined a rattlesnake for three years in a cage. Did he never once get 

 a sight of the fangs all that time ? I will allow anybody the range 

 of the whole world : and if he can produce one single solitary fang 

 of any snake, great or small, with the point turned upwards, I will 

 submit to be sent to the treadmill for three years. All fangs of 

 snakes are curved somewhat in the shape of a scythe, with their 

 points downwards ; and we see clearly that their position in the 

 mouth, and the manner in which they convey the poison, require 

 that their points should be curved downwards. 



Mr Taylor further informs us that " black snakes are called racers, 

 from their occasionally chasing men with great ferocity." Chase 

 argues pursuit and retreat: now, I affirm that snakes never chase 

 men, or, indeed, any other animals. 



It often happens that a man turns round and runs away when he 

 has come suddenly upon a snake, " retroque pedem cum voce re- 

 pressit; 1 ' while the disturbed snake itself is obliged through necessity 

 (as I shall show by and by) to glide in the same path which the man 

 has taken. The man, seeing this, runs away at double speed, fancy- 

 ing that he is pursued by the snake. If he would only have the 

 courage to stand still, and would step sideways, on the snake's coming 

 up to him, he might rest secure that it would not attack him, pro- 

 vided that he, on his part, abstained from provoking it. I once laid 

 hold of a serpent's tail as it was crossing the path before me, and 

 then, as might be expected, it immediately raised itself and came at 

 me, and I had to fight it for my pains ; but, until I had seized its 

 tail, it showed no inclination whatever either to chase me or to attack 

 me. Had I been ignorant of the habits of snakes, I should certainly 

 have taken myself off as soon as I perceived that it was approaching 

 the place where I was standing ; and then I should have told every- 

 body that I had been pursued by a serpent, and had had to run for 

 my life. This snake was ten feet long. 



In 1820, on my way to the interior of Guiana, I accompanied Mr 



