SNAKES. . 431 



in contact with giant serpents. Did such a fcetor really exist, to the 

 extent which authors have described, other animals could not live 

 with any comfort under its suffocating influence j and it would be a 

 salutary warning to them that an enemy was in the neighbourhood 

 Their precipitous retiring from it would be the means of starving the 

 serpent to death, for want of ordinary nourishment. Once I passed 

 a whole night (see the " Wanderings ") in the same abandoned house 

 with a living Coulacanara snake of extraordinary size. No bad nor 

 nauseous smell infected the apartment during any portion of the 

 night. 



Most lovely are the colours of some snakes when exposed to the 

 rays of a tropical sun but they fade in death, and cannot possibly 

 be restored by any application known at present, saving that of 

 paint; which, when compared with nature's inimitable tints, and 

 applied by the most scientific hand, is but a mean and sorry sub- 

 stitute. I can restore the exact form and features of dissected 

 animals. But there I stop. Scales of snakes, and those of fishes, 

 after death, must infallibly lose their metallic splendour ; do what 

 you choose, a skin will assume the hue of parchment. Could these 

 sad changes by the hand of death be obviated with success, then 

 indeed, our specimens for museums would be as though in life, 

 saving the loss of motion. But, on viewing them, after all has been 

 done that can be done, we are forced to exclaim with poor Margaret, 

 in Mallet's inimitable ballad, 



" That face, alas ! no more is fair, 



That lip no longer red ; 

 Dark are my eyes, now closed in death, 

 And every charm is fled." 



All snakes in gliding onwards, take a motion from right to left, or 

 vice versti but never up and down the whole extent of the body 

 being in contact with the ground, saving the head which is somewhat 

 elevated. This is equally observable both on land and in water. 

 Thus, when we see a snake represented in an up and down attitude, 

 we know at once that the artist is to blame. 



The common and accepted notion that snakes can fascinate 

 animals to their destruction by a dead-set of the eye at them, is 

 erroneous and ought to be exploded. Snakes, in fact, have no such 



