POISONOUS 8NAE1 ]'.i] 



jclea closing the jaws press upon ti m gland, ' 



the poison into the wound. The p 

 largest in the mosl deadly - the viper ( I 



the puff adder (Clotho), the rattlesnake, and fer-de-lance 

 {Trigonocephaly, s), bul arc small in the asps or ho< 

 snakee (Naja) 1 of the ran lesnake is intei 



painful; it is bes< cured by sucking, freely lancing, and by 

 cauterizing the wound, and drinking large quant 



a pint) of whiskey or brandy, sufficient ordinarily to 

 produce insensibility. Deaths from the biteof rattlesnakes 

 are nol common, while in India it is estimated that several 

 thousand people annually die from the bite of the cobra — 

 20,000 dying each year from the bite of snakes and the 

 attacks of wild beasts.* The " rattle" of the rattlesna 

 a horny appendage formed of buttonlike compartnn 

 the sound made by the rattle, which has been compared by 

 some to the stridulation of a Carolina locust, or of the 

 Cicada, is an alarm note, warning the intruder; the rattle 

 is sprung before the snake strikes. Allied to this 

 the copperhead (Ancistrodon contortrix Linn.) and the 

 black mocassin {Anchtrodon piscivorus Linn.) In the 

 water-snakes the tails are laterally compn — d, while the 

 poison-fangs are small. These snakes are uot much over a 

 metre in length, and live far from land in the East Indian 

 seas. 



* In 1880 the deaths in India reported a< from snake bite were 

 19.060: and 212,776 suukes were killed at a • 

 wants, 'flic next year (1881) there were fatally bitti 

 and 254,968 snakes were destroyed at a cost of mar - 



The BDiikcs which do tin- mischief ni ding to F tin' 



cobra, the Bungarus coeruleus or krait, the echis, and the dah< 

 Russell's viper, all of which are most conspicuous snak< 

 identified. There arc others, such a- Bungarus fasciatus, Ophio- 

 us elaps, which arc dangerous, hut comparative and 



Beldom bite men; while the hydroplii la;, beiug confined to ;. 

 estuaries, are. though very | to man. and 



the trimeresuri, which arc both uncommon and at I 

 uot so deadly as to endanger |i| 



