The Zoologist— September, 1869, 1809 



Joltings on Snakes; wUh an Appendix, S^Cj on Snake Poison and 



its reputed Antidotes. 



By Charles Horne, Esq., B.C.S., F.Z.S. 



The following anecdotes of Snakes are now published inconse- 

 quence of the general interest taken in Natural History in all its 

 branches, and especially in snakes. The fashion of the present day 

 is to illustrate the habits and instincts of animals by stories re- 

 lating to them, and 1 had at one time intended to prepare a volume 

 or two, in humble imitation of Jesse, Buckland and others, but only 

 relating to India. In the Mutiny of 1857 I lost the notes and collec- 

 tions of sixteen years, and those now set down in the exact words of 

 the narrators are chiefly the collection of the following years. 



The Appendix, consisting of extracts relating to snake poison and 

 its reputed antidotes, will be found of great interest, and illustrates, in 

 a remarkable degree, how little we really know either of the action 

 of the venom, or of its antidotes. — Charles Horne. 



These notes on serpents, which have been recorded by me during a 

 long residence in India, may well be introduced by an account of the 

 power of fascination possessed by the common English snake, and 

 also by the stoat, given me in 1860 by the Rev. II. Bond, and which 

 I will give in his own words. 



" I have now no remembrance as to the year in which I noticed the 

 following facts. Walking in an orchard near Tynehara House, in 

 Dorsetshire, I came upon an old adder baskiug in the sun, with her 

 young around her ; she was lying in some grass which had been long 

 cut, and had become smooth and bleached by exposure to the weather. 

 Alarmed by my approach, I distinctly saw the young ones run down 

 the parent's throat : at that lime I had never heard of the controversy 

 respecting this fact, otherwise I should have been more anxious to 

 have killed the viper, to further prove the case : as it was, she 

 escaped while I was more interested in the circumstance than in her 

 destruction. 



" On another occasion I was walking on the hill-side above West 

 Creed Farm, in Purbeck : the down was scattered with low furze 

 bushes, and my attention was arrested by a cry of distress ; it pro- 

 ceeded from a rabbit which was cantering round in a ring, with a 

 halting gait : I watched it for some minutes, but, as the circle became 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. III. 2 T 



