184 BEASTS AND MEN 
started again, but it was seven days before the snakes arrived 
in Hamburg; and at that time of year seven days on the 
North Sea is naturally a great strain upon animals accustomed 
to tropical climates. I had a premonition that the affair would 
turn out badly, and so it happened ; for on their arrival at 
Hamburg the whole collection were dead, I hastened with 
them to my establishment and applied all known means of 
revivifying them, but in vain. It was too late. Not one was 
saved. When I mention that I lost over this transaction not 
only the £1,000 paid for the snakes, but a great deal more 
fot which J had already sold them in advance to America, it 
will be readily understood that my sorrow at the affair was 
genuine. 
If the non-poisonous snakes are dangerous, the poisonous 
snakes are, of course, much more so. In handling these I am 
always uncommonly careful, and whenever any of them reach 
my establishment among a collection of animals, I always 
pass them on to their next destination as quickly as circum- 
stances will permit. The first adventure which I had with 
the ‘‘poison people” was in the sixties, when a case of puff- 
adders arrived for us and was brought to the house. The 
case was a large flat one, made of wire netting covered round 
with wooden boards. It was impossible to keep them in this 
case, and I was therefore confronted with the problem of 
changing them into a new one. I thought I should be able 
simply to shake them out from the old cage into the new; 
and with this intent I tore away a portion of the side of the 
old cage. But they were not to be transferred so easily. 
They darted to the opening, but instead of passing over into 
the other cage they endeavoured to get away sideways. 
Nothing could persuade them to go into the new cage, and 
at one moment two of the reptiles very nearly escaped. I 
was so horrified at this possibility that I gingerly shook them 
back into the old cage and pressed the new one against 
the opening so as to block it up. I then with some little 
difficulty managed to fasten up again the hole which I had 
