1870 The Zoologist — October, 1869. 



Snake Poison, and reputed Antidotes for the same. 

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



I cannot forbear quoting in this place from a very interesting book 

 (' Thirty-three years in Tasmania and Victoria,' by G. T. Lloyd) a 

 story strongly resembling in its details many of those detailed in the 

 previous paper : he is speaking of the diamond adder : — 



" During my long sojourn in the colonies I must have destroyed at 

 least a thousand of those treacherous enemies of man. 1 was always 

 under the conviction that the diamond adder possessed animal mag- 

 netism, and had the power of fascination to a degree beyond any 

 other of its species. Often have I seen a terror-stricken little bird 

 hopping from twig to twig, uttering the most plaintive cries and twit- 

 tering its nervous wings in trembling agony, caused, as I have in- 

 variably discovered, by the overpowering attractive gaze of a diamond 

 adder. In this opinion I was one day most unmistakably confirmed; 

 for, whilst passing' through the locality referred to, for the purpose of 

 hunting the diminutive animal erroneously termed the kangaroo-ra t 

 mv favourite highly-trained lurcher, Pat, hearing the well-known 

 alarm-call of the ever-watchful raina birds, immediately ran to the 

 spot where they were assembled; curiosity induced me also to hasten 

 to the place. On arriving, I perceived from certain twitchings of Pat's 

 sensitive foot and nose, whenever she touched any doubtful substance 

 in the long grass, that the subtle enemy — the deadly snake — was 

 somewhere in the vicinity, and had been espied by the little bush 

 police birds (as the minas are termed), and of whom there must have 

 been at least six or seven hundred, screaming at the top of their voices 

 and uttering cries of distress from the branches of an adjacent tree. 

 In vain did Pat and 1 search every clump of grass, dead bush, and 

 log around us ; nothing could be found. At length, however, after 

 quietly watching at a little distince for about ten minutes from a 

 small hole in the branch of a hollow gum tree, forth peered the grim 

 visage of a very large diamond adder. Pat's keen eyes discovered the 

 hideous monster first, and rushing towards me in undisguised terror, 

 with bristling hair, and standing erect on her hind legs, she showed 

 me the serpent — which had artfully crept up the inside of a tree, 

 the heart of which had been destroyed by bush -fires. Being some 

 thirty feet below I was compelled to be a mere spectator, and seeing 

 that the cunning snake was somewhat shy of acting his part before so 



