184 JOURNAL, NATURAL HIST. SOOIFTY OF STA^f Vol I. 



for they do not strike and let go, but continue to hold on, and 

 do not relax their grip, until the victim is quite dead. A mouse 

 caught in this way dies with extreme rapidity, generally in two 

 or three minutes, and beyond a few faint convulsive kicks does not 

 struggle at all. The actual paralysing factor in this case is no doubt 

 shock. If perchance, from the snake not being sufficiently cjuick, 

 some other part of the animal is caught, such as a limb or the head, 

 death is hj no means so rapid, and the mouse usually manages to shake 

 itself free and escape. The snake then goes off in search of it. but 

 appears to have no sense of direction, and in a wild state, if the 

 animal had been abl r* to travel any distance before collapsing, would 

 certainly not be found. 



Poison. The poison of this snake is almost entirely local in ifs 

 action. It is fatal to small mammals, but can hardly be considered 

 dangerous to human beings. I see a fair number of patients who have 

 been bitten by this snake every year, and their s3'mptoms vary in inten- 

 sity from those with slight swelling round the bitten part and practically 

 no pain, to others with considerable swelling and very severe pain. 

 General symptoms ara entirely absent, except for some occasional 

 slight feeling of giddiness, which ma}' be due to a very natural trepida- 

 tion on the part of the patient. In my own case, which may be looked 

 upon as a severe one, I was bitten in the terminal joint of the right 

 thumb whilst incautiously handling tha snake. I had seized the it too 

 far down the neck, and it was able to turn its head round and bite me. 

 Fortunately it could onl}^ raacli me with one fang, but that one 

 went deepl}' in. The pain was intense and immediate, as if a red hot 

 needle had been thrust into me, and it continued with great severity 

 for 24 hours. Sleep was impossible without opium. The whole hand 

 as far as the wrist swelled rapidly up, and at the actual seat of the 

 bite, a small area, as big as a pea, became necrotic and ultimately 

 sloughed away. The swelling of the hand subsided within a week, 

 but in the thumb itself it persisted much longer, and it was six 

 weeks before the wound had healed and I had recovered the full 

 use of my hand. Treatment in this case consisted in appl5^ing a 

 ligature to the base of the thumb until the pain from the con- 

 striction became unbearable, and in scarifying the wound and 

 rubbing ' in crystals of permanganate of potash. Owing to the 

 difficulty,* however, of operating upon myself with my left hand, 



