200 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. 



they continued this procedure for some hours, showing both 

 intolerable fear and a strange attraction. Mrs. Martin in 

 her Home Life on an Ostrich Farm tells of a baboon, Sarah, 

 to whom a paper package was presented in which, instead 

 of the usual sweet-stuff a dead night adder was wrapped 

 up. " When she unfolded the innermost paper, and the 

 snake slipped out with a horrid writhe across her hand, 

 Sarah quietly sank backwards and fainted away, her lips 

 turning perfectly white. By dint of throwing water over 

 her, chafing her hands, and bathing her lips with brandy, 

 she was revived from the swoon, though not without some 

 difficulty." 



My allotted space is already fully occupied, and there are 

 many matters of interest concerning snakes which I must 

 leave unnoticed. Fiction and fancy have so long played 

 around the snake that it is often difficult to disentangle 

 fact therefrom. It is said, for example, that maternal 

 vipers, puff-adders, and rattlesnakes will, in the presence of 

 danger, open their mouths and allow their little ones to find 

 an asylum of safety in their gullets. What are we to say 

 about this ? It sounds strange and unnatural ; but it is so 

 strongly vouched for, even by competent observers, that one 

 hardly likes to repeat at one's leisure concerning these 

 people the somewhat sweeping accusation that David is 

 reported to have made in his haste. 



I cannot discuss the matter here ; but I must add one 

 paragraph in conclusion concerning the strange egg-eating 

 snake of South Africa, the Eiger eter of the Dutch colonists. 

 This subsists mainly or entirely on eggs. And since the 

 ordinary toothed jaws would be an obvious disadvantage to 

 the species, since they would break the egg and much of 

 the contents would be spilled, the mouth is almost or quite 

 toothless. But in the throat sharp, hard-tipped spines 

 project into the gullet from the vertebrae of the spine in 



