200 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAP. VI. 



several eminently poisonous. It is to be regretted, 

 however, that he scarcely mentions them by their vul- 

 gar names. That called the Woods-master has a wide 

 and flat head, and has a frightful appearance, from 

 having long loose scales on the head, which can be 

 erected at pleasure. This snake never flies before an 

 enemy, and its bite is universally deemed fatal. The 

 effects of the bite of another, the Labarra snake, are 

 instantaneous. " A negro, who was bitten by one, 

 had just time to kill it, when his limbs were unable to 

 support him, and he fell to the ground, expiring in 

 less than five minutes from the time of receiving the 

 wound : the blood exuding from the ends of the capil- 

 lary sanguine arteries occasioned the appearance of 

 purple spots on every part of the external surface of the 

 body ; and haemorrhages ensued from the nose, eyes, 

 ears, and lungs."* Brazil is infested by several others 

 peculiar to that empire. Spix, who travelled there, 

 observes, " Among the most poisonous of serpents is 

 the one called Urutu, which, like several species of 

 Bothrops, lives chiefly in the gloomy recesses of the 

 forests : its bite is said to occasion almost instant death. 

 The bite of the Brazilian rattlesnake is nearly as 

 terrible as that from the North American species, for it 

 is almost always fatal in twenty-four hours ; while 

 that of the Bothrops kucurus takes effect in a much 

 shorter time : it is peculiarly horrible, being attended 

 with dreadful convulsions, and with all the symptoms 

 of hydrophobia/'^ 



(213.) The puff adder (Vipera inflata) is held in 

 universal dread by the Africans, as being, probably, the 

 most venomous of its tribe in Southern Africa. Unlike 

 the generality of snakes, which make a spring or dart 

 forwards, when irritated, the puff" adder, as it is said, 

 throws itself backwards, so that those ignorant of the 

 fact would place themselves in the very direction of 

 death. The natives, however, by keeping always in 



* Bancroft's Nat. Hist, of Guiana, p. 21S. 

 t Spix's Travels, vol. i. p. 131. 



