THE SNAKES 273 



certain unpleasant insects — do not seek human 

 society. Except in cases where the biped 

 intruder blunders into the vicinity of a nest, 

 or finds himself between the creature and its 

 hole, it will practically always retire. 



The recorded cases of the deaths which have 

 taken place as the result of the bites of mambas 

 are not, 1 believe, very numerous. Certainly, 

 during the whole of my many years of service 

 in Africa, I have never heard of an authenticated 

 case of loss from snake-bite of any kind of human 

 life. The only casualty from this cause which 

 1 have actually seen was the death of a pig in 

 the outskirts of a native village near Tete, the 

 perpetrator of the tragedy (which I did not see) 

 being described to me as a reptile whose peculi- 

 arities coincided exactly with those of the mamba. 

 In this case certainly death was very rapid. 



But what renders the name of this snake so 

 dreaded by Europeans and natives alike is the 

 certainty that death must ensue from the 

 injection of its venom. In the cases of nearly 

 all other poisonous reptiles, such, for instance, 

 as the puff-adder and, in some cases, I believe, 

 the African cobra, the bites of these creatures 

 are often, but by no means always, followed by 

 a fatal result ; but the mamba is more thorough, 

 and from the punctures of its fangs there is no 

 escape. 



The head of this serpent is small, as, indeed, 

 is the girth of its entire body. The poison, 

 contained in glands above and on each side of 

 the root of the tongue, is injected through two 



