HABITS OF VENOMOUS SNAKES. 293 



vague fears, that mix like a discordant sound with the harmonies 

 of this sylvan world. For in the hollows of the tangled roots 

 and in the dense underwood of the forest a brood of noxious 

 reptiles loves to conceal itself, and who knows whether a snake, 

 armed with poisonous fangs, may not dart forth from the 

 rustling foliage. 



Gradually, however, these reflections wear away, and time 

 and experience convince one that the snakes in the tropical 

 woods are hardly more to be feared than in the forests of 

 Grermany or France, where also the viper will sometimes inflict 

 a deadly wound. These reptiles are, indeed, far from being of 

 so frequent occurrence as is generally believed ; and on meeting 

 with a snake, there is every probability of its belonging to the 

 harmless species, which show themselves much more frequently 

 by day, and are far more numerous. Even in India and 

 Ceylon, where serpents are said to abound, they make their 

 appearance so cautiously that the surprise of long residents is 

 invariably expressed at their being so seldom seen. 



Sir E. Tennent, wlio frequently performed journeys of two to 

 five hundred miles through the jungle without seeing a single 

 snake, never heard, during his long residence in Ceylon, of 

 the death of a European being caused by the bite of one of 

 these reptiles ; and in almost every instance accidents to the 

 natives happened at night, when the animal, having been sur- 

 prised or trodden on, had inflicted the wound in self-defence. 

 Thus, to avoid danger, the Singhalese, when obliged to leave 

 their houses in the dark, carry a stick with a loose ring, the 

 noise of which, as they strike it on the ground, is sufficient to 

 warn the snakes to leave their path. 



During his live years' travels through the whole breadth of 

 tropical America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, M. de Cas- 

 telnau, although ever on the search, collected no more than 

 ninety-one serpents, of which only twenty-one were poisonous ; 

 a proof that they are not more frequently met with in the 

 primitive forests of Brazil than in the jungles of India or 

 Ceylon. 



The habits of the venomous snakes, and the external cha- 

 racters by which they are distinguished from the harmless 

 species, likewise tend to diminish the danger to be apprehended 

 from them. Thus, their head is generally flat, broad, lanceo- 



