TREATMENT OF SNAKES IN CAPTIVITY. 451 



the urgent necessity of observation in this section of Natural 

 History. Serpents demand examination of the living specimen 

 for accurate knowledge more than any other class of animals, yet 

 in all probability, no other has been so little studied in this way. 

 They change very rapidly and to a very great extent after death, 

 and there is no known method of preserving them which will 

 properly exhibit their characteristics. The fact of their colour 

 fading, as it invariably does, whether the bodies be dried or 

 embalmed in spirit — startling transformations moreover occur- 

 ring in some cases, as from deep green to pale blue, and from 

 crimson to white — is of the least importance, since coloration is 

 taken but little into account in their classification, and is, indeed, 

 becoming less and less a matter of consideration every clay in 

 the categorical subdivision of all creatures. The wonder is, not 

 that ophiological tabulation should be imperfect and subject to 

 enormous variations among different authorities, but that we 

 should have a classification at all, and that it should be as good 

 as it is. The difficulties in the way are immense, and works like 

 those of Drs. Gray and Gunther are simply miracles of patience. 

 When people abroad see a live snake they rush upon it and 

 batter it to death with sticks and stones, as though every inch of 

 it possessed a separate and fifty-feline power of life calling for 

 special destruction ; then they pick up what is left of it, and, 

 after an uncertain interval of time, very often in the broiling 

 midday heat of the tropics, put it into a bottle of cachasse, 

 canha, aguadiente, or some other coarse spirit which disintegrates 

 its actual structure, label it with a wrong name, and send it 

 home. Such, in the case of many species, have been the only 

 materials that naturalists have had to work upon. 



I met with striking illustrations of this in the South -American 

 Thauatophidia. The snakes of India, Australia, South Africa, 

 Europe, and the United States have all been more or less noted 

 by competent observers in their habitat, while the descriptions of 

 those found in South and Central America are based chiefly 

 upon bottled specimens. In many instances they could scarcely 

 be recognised, so hard was it to reconcile the verbal portrait with 

 its living presentment. The number of individuals of any 

 species, or from any country, which have been maintained alive 

 in menageries, is comparatively so small that they cannot be 

 taken into account in this connection. 



