202 NATURAL HISTORY SKETCHES, 



tion, and shot out its full length like lightning. Many 

 dogs are very quick at killing snakes, and will seize and 

 throw them up like a rat, but sooner or later they pay 

 the penalty of their rashness. An old bush-dog generally 

 stands over a snake, at a respectful distance, and barks 

 till the shooter comes up. 



The laughing-jackass and stump-lizard both destroy 

 snakes ; and they say that Underwood, in Van Diemen's 

 Land, who cured the bite of snakes, discovered the 

 secret of his elixir by watching a battle between a snake 

 and a stump-lizard. After the lizard had killed the 

 snake, he saw it eat the leaves of a small plant. He 

 gathered some, made a docoction of it, and this was the 

 secret of Underwood's mixture. "Whether this was the 

 case or not I am unable to say, but I believe his remedy 

 is very efficacious; and he has himself acknowledged 

 that the principal ingredient is a plant on which we 

 tread in this country every day of our lives. 



It is singular, considering how much I was always 

 about the bush, and the number of snakes that I killed, 

 not a single instance of a snake-bite ever came under 

 my actual observation; so it appears that these snakes 

 are less to be feared than might at first be imagined. I 

 have known men who have been bitten and recovered, so 

 that the bite is not always fatal. Much, I think, 

 depends upon the state of the blood, and the season of the 

 year. One man I knew was bitten in the finger by a 

 whip-snake, when putting up a fence. He coolly laid his 

 finger on a post, and chopped it off with his axe, and 



