THE CEKASTES, OR HORNED VIPER 107 



they display very great courage and address. Taking advantage of the reptile's aluggish 

 habits, they plant their bare feet upon its neck before it has quite made up its reptilian 

 mind to action, and, holding it firmly down, cut off its head and extract the poison at their 

 leisure. In order to make it adhesive to the arrow point, it is mixed with the glutinous 

 juice of the amaryllis. 



There seems to be no certain remedies for the bite of the Puff Adder. Ammonia appears 

 to be the least inefficacious substance for that purpose, and the natives occasionally attempt 

 to heal the injury by splitting a living fowl across the breast, and applying the still- 

 palpitating halves to the wound. There is a kind of seed called the " gentleman bean," 

 which is said to have a beneficial effect. If one of these beans be placed on the recently 

 inflicted wound, it adheres with great firmness, and is said to absorb the poison from the 

 system, and to fall off as soon as this object is achieved. The Bushmen are in the habit 

 of swallowing the poison whenever they kill a Puff Adder and do not need its venomous 

 store for their arrows, hoping thereby to render themselves proof against its effects. When 

 examined under the microscope, the poison resolves itself into minute crystalline spiculse, 

 not unlike those of Epsom salts, which must be kept perfectly dry or they will soon vanish 

 from the glass on which they are placed. 



The colour of the Puff Adder is brown, chequered with dark brown and white, and with 

 a reddish band between the eyes. The under parts are paler than the upper. 



SEVEKAL other deadly serpents of the same country are closely allied to the puff 

 adder. The first is the DAS ADDER or RIVER JACK (Clotho nasicornis) of the colonists, 

 remarkable for the long curved horn or spine upon the nose, formed by the peculiar 

 development of the scales over the nostril. This curious structure is only found in the 

 male. In colour it is much darker than the puff adder, being black, marbled with a paler 

 hue, and decorated with sundry lozenge-shaped spots along the back. 



The BERG ADDER (Clotho Atropos) is another of these fearful reptiles. As its name 

 denotes, it is found more among the hills and stony ranges than on the plains, but is not 

 unfrequently found upon the flats, and will sometimes intrude into very awkward positions, 

 such as the floor of a hut, or even the bed upon which some wearied man is about to cast 

 himself. It is not quite so poisonous as the puff adder, though its looks are quite as 

 unprepossessing, and it never bites unless purposely irritated, or trodden upon. 



It is an ugly, thick-bodied, slow crawling creature, with a suddenly tapering tail and 

 a most evil looking head. It is not a large reptile, its average length being about eighteen 

 inches. Its colour is olive-grey, marbled on the sides, and decorated along the back with 

 four rows of dark squared spots. 



YET one more species of this genus deserves a passing notice. This is the HORNED 

 ADDER (Clotho cornuta], sometimes, but erroneously, called the Cerastes, a term that is 

 rightly applied to another Serpent shortly to be described. It sometimes goes by the 

 popular name of HORNSMAN. It derives its name of Horned Adder from the groups of 

 little thread-like horns that are seen on the head, one group appearing above each eye. 

 In some works of Natural History, it is called the PLUMED VIPER, in allusion to these 

 curious groups. It is not very graceful in form, being decidedly short, squat, and puffy in 

 shape, but is very prettily marked, its body being richly marbled with chestnut, covered 

 with a multitude of minute dots, and variegated with four rows of dark spots along the 

 back, two rows running on each side of the vertebral line. 



THE true CERASTES or HORNED VIPER is a native of Northern Africa, and divides with 

 the cobra of the same country the questionable honour of being the "worm of Nile" to 

 whose venomous tooth Cleopatra's death was due. 



The bite of this most ungainly looking Serpent is extremely dangerous, though, perhaps, 

 not quite so deadly as that of the cobra, and the creature is therefore not quite so much 

 dreaded as might be imagined. The Cerastes has a most curious appearance, owing to a 

 rather large horn-like scale which projects over each eye, and which, according to the 



