98 POISONOUS SNAKES AND SNAKE POISONS. 



externally so many attractive qualities and seems to be so 

 good-natured that the most reliable investigators have 

 pledged themselves for their harmlessness, and in one 

 case recommended them even as playthings for ladies 

 and children. Nothing has proved to be more pernicious 

 than this unheard of credulity. 



: Other scientists pointed out as a sign of distinction 

 their peculiar^ danger-signaling, awe-inspiring look, 

 their fiery-red, malicious-looking eye vs^ith the oblong or 

 slit-like pupil, and their dull and heavy disposition. 

 Not to speak of the fact that nobody will be inclined to 

 examine quietly and carefully the pupil of a snake 

 which is about to bite, and also not mentioning the cir- 

 cumstance that any snake, poisonous or innocuous, dull of 

 disposition or not, invariably becomes very lively as soon 

 as it is going to attack somebody, all those marks 

 are likewise very uncertain and can in no way be de- 

 pended upon as long as our life and health is at stake by 

 some slight misunderstanding or misrepresentation of 

 the facts. 



Much has been said, indeed, by trustworthy travelers 

 on the peculiar enchanting power of the eyes of poison- 

 ous snakes ; others have denied it just as positively. It 

 will be safe, therefore, to conclude that the truth lies in 

 the middle. There is no doubt that the eyes of serpents, 

 not being protected by any eyelids, show that strange, 

 stony and unwinking stare for which these reptiles are 

 celebrated, and there is just as little doubt about cases 

 when squirrels or birds, merrily playing in the woods 

 and suddenly preceiving a poisonous snake, are terrified 

 to the utmost, so that they are unable to move, and thus 

 become an easy victim of their enemy. They seem to be 

 paralyzed, and, far from trying to flee away, fall 

 from the tree or from the shrubs, often right into the 

 wide-open jaws of the luring animal. Nobody will con- 

 sider such an event as anything strange or doubtful. 



