VIPERS AND COLUBRINES 



attack with little or no provocation. The second of 

 the better known " popular " names, i.e. King Cobra, 

 is a name which has possibly been referred to the hama- 

 dryad from the cobra itself. Legend again in snake 

 natural history there is much that is legendary to use 

 a non-provocative expression, relates that a large 

 snake was observed to utter a peculiar note, and that 

 from neighbouring thickets out came a crowd of 

 smaller snakes, who prostrated themselves before the 

 monarch ; he, however, selected a fat one for imme- 

 diate consumption. But there is this basis of truth 

 recorded in the scientific name that the Ophiophagus 

 is a snake-eater by choice ; specimens at the Zoo are 

 fed upon common English grass snakes, which they 

 eat almost after the fashion of an Englishman devour- 

 ing a stick of asparagus. 



The older naturalists put together all the poisonous 

 snakes, and separated them from the harmless varieties, 

 and in this way associated the vipers and the cobras. 

 But we now know that one set of poisonous snakes is 

 not very nearly related to the other. In the vipers the 

 poison teeth have the characters that we have already 

 dealt with, and which we need not therefore recapitu- 

 late. In this snake the hinder series of teeth are merely 

 grooved, and the poison pours along all or any of them 

 with indifference to reach the wound which they have 

 made, 



THE GREEN TREE VIPER 



The snake is apt to be as wily nowadays as he was 

 in the Garden of Eden some time since ; but his guile 

 takes a different form. The aim of the modern serpent 

 is the honest and straightforward one of securing as 

 much food as possible, and of escaping his enemies. 

 In order to accomplish these two aims resource is had 

 to varied forms of deception. Sheer strength, and 

 even the possession of formidable fangs with poison 



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