382 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVII. 



teeth, and drink it." Fontana's viper-catcher, called Jacques, was 

 reputed to swallow spoonfuls of viper venom.* 



Fraserf mentions the following well authenticated reports of this 

 practice with the avowed intention of acquiring a tolerance against snake 

 poison. One Alfred Bolton set himself to enquire how the natives in 

 Busbmanland, Namaqualand, Dumaraland, and Kalakari obtained im- 

 munity from snake-bite, and ascertained that they are in the habit of 

 extracting the poison-gland of snakes, squeezing them into their mouths, 

 and drinking the contents. Dr. Knobel, of Pretoria, substantiates this 

 observation, and records having met a Bushman shepherd who said he 

 had been in the habit for years of eating snake-venom. 



Other people appear to inoculate themselves with the poison to 

 attain the same object. M. D'AbbodieJ says that the Vatnas of Mo- 

 zambique inoculate themselves with snake poison to preserve immunity 

 from snake -bite, and Calmette§ observes that a viper- catcher living in the 

 Jura allowed himself to be bitten by vipers once or twice each year to 

 preserve the tolerance he had acquired to their poison. 



The Eisowy, a tribe inhabiting Western Barbary, says Drum- 

 mond-Hay, allow themselves to be bitten by serpents proved 

 to be venomous by a rapidly fatal experiment performed on a 

 fowl and that, at the conclusion of an exhibition, the man com- 

 menced eating, or rather chewing, a poisonous snake which, writhing 

 with pain, bit him in the neck and hands until it was actually 

 destroyed by the Eisowy's teeth. 



As an avrow dressing. — The poison of snakes is collected by certain 

 savages for quite another purpose, viz., that of dressing their arrows, 

 and so dealing death to their foes or to wild beasts hunted for food ; and 

 though this does not necessarily imply the destruction of the snake, it 

 is more than probable that where the quarry is a formidable one and 

 shows fight there is little hesitation in killing the creature. The 

 Scythians are reported to have poisoned their arrows with viper venom 

 mixed with human blood. Livingstone || speaking of the Bushmen in 

 Africa says they poison their arrows with the piece of the Euphorbia 



* Loc. cit., p. 75. 



t " Nature," April 23rd, 1896, p. 595. 



% " Academie des Sciences," Feb. 24th, 1896. 



§ Bomb. Nat. Hist. Journ., Vol. XI, p. 521, 



|] " Joumejs and Researches," p. 171. 



