DR. TH. NEUMANN. 97 



from the poisonous snakes, we may ask the question now 

 whether there are any characteristic signs by which we 

 can find at a glance the difference between a poisonous 

 and an innocuous snake, so that we know at once 

 whether it is safer to keep away from it or to handle it 

 with impunity, whether it is more advisable to kill it or 

 spare its life. 



Be it said right here what cannot be repeated often and 

 emphatically enough, that the external differences be- 

 tween both kinds of snakes are extremely insignificant, 

 that it is impossible often even for a very well trained 

 eye, to recognize a poisonous snake as such by merely 

 looking at it, and that many scientists have imperiled 

 their lives more than once by disregarding this precau- 

 tion, by getting too confident in their experience and 

 finding out too late that they had deceived them- 

 selves. In more than one case such men have paid for 

 their temerity with their lives. 



In some text-books of Zoology so-called characteristic 

 signs of venomous snakes are set forth with really in- 

 credible levity. It is true that certain kinds of poison- 

 ous snakes possess a short body, which is very much 

 thicker in the middle than at the ends, that they have 

 also a short and rapidly tapering tail, and that they have 

 a very thin neck with a triangular head which is con- 

 nected with the neck by one of its broad sides. We may 

 also admit that the construction of their scales differ 

 often from that of the innocuous snakes, but most of 

 these marks hold good only for a limited group of 

 poisonous snakes, not for other groups, and — what 

 makes things worse — may also be found in harmless 

 snakes, so that this method of getting at the truth is a 

 very treacherous one. There are species of sea-serpents, 

 some of the most dangerous imaginable, which look as 

 harmless and innocent as any other snake, and a numer- 

 ous group of cobras whose virulence is well-known, has 



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