CHAP. VI. POISONOUS SERPENTS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 199 



victuals. Without going into the question about the 

 power of some of the Africans to handle these serpents 

 with impunity, it may safely be concluded that a bite 

 which would produce certain death in one case, may 

 reasonably be supposed to do so in another. The usual 

 symptoms which follow the bite of the Cerastes, are, a 

 tumefaction of the part, a general icterus, swelling of 

 the face, delirium, convulsions, and death. 



(212.) It would be impossible to enumerate, correctly, 

 many others, equally venomous, that have been men- 

 tioned by travellers, since the greater part are known to 

 us only by their provincial names. A species mentioned 

 by Forbes, as insinuating itself into the houses of India, 

 is the smallest and most dangerous in that country. 

 It is of a brown colour, speckled with black and white ; 

 though, at a distance, it is not easily distinguished from 

 the ground upon which it moves. Its bite occasions a 

 speedy and painful death. Mr. Forbes assures us he 

 once found four, and at another time five, of these 

 reptiles creeping among the furniture in his own cham- 

 ber.* The Trigonocephali, or square-headed serpents 

 of the West Indies, seem to be universal objects of 

 horror, not only to man, but to the brute creation. The 

 horse trembles and prances violently in its presence ; 

 rats scud away at its approach, sending forth cries of 

 terror : and birds especially, upon which it feeds, often 

 indicate to man the place of its retreat. The bite of 

 this serpent is terrible ; sometimes it produces death, 

 with all those distressing symptoms above mentioned, 

 in a few hours ; and sometimes the miserable patient 

 lingers for several days. But even if, by a timely ap- 

 plication of the most efficacious remedies, life is pre- 

 served, it is embittered for many years by vertigoes, 

 paralysis, phagedenic ulcers of a malignant nature, and 

 a variety of other distressing infirmities. Bancroft, 

 one of the oldest and best writers on the habits of 

 the snakes of Tropical America, gives us a fearful list of 



* Orient. Mem. p. 42. 



o 4 



