12 Through the Brazihan Wilderness 



jararaca, being identical or practically identical with the 

 fer-de-lance. The snakes of this genus, like the rattle- 

 snakes and the Old World vipers and puff-adders, possess 

 long poison-fangs which strike through clothes or any 

 other human garment except stout leather. Moreover, 

 they are very aggressive, more so than any other snakes 

 in the world, except possibly some of the cobras. As, in 

 addition, they are numerous, they are a source of really 

 frightful danger to scantily clad men who work in the 

 fields and forests, or who for any reason are abroad at 

 night. 



The poison of venomous serpents is not in the least 

 uniform in its quality. On the contrary, the natural 

 forces — to use a term which is vague, but which is as 

 exact as our present-day knowledge permits — ^that have 

 developed in so many different families of snakes these 

 poisoned fangs have worked in two or three totally dif- 

 ferent fashions. Unlike the vipers, the colubrine poison- 

 ous snakes have small fangs, and their poison, though 

 on the whole even more deadly, has entirely different 

 effects, and owes its deadliness to entirely different quali- 

 ties. Even within the same family there are wide differ- 

 ences. In the jararaca an extraordinary quantity of 

 yellow venom is spurted from the long poison-fangs. 

 This poison is secreted in large glands which, among 

 vipers, give the head its peculiar ace-of-spades shape. 

 The rattlesnake yields a much smaller quantity of white 

 venom, but, quantity for quantity, this white venom is 

 more deadly. It is the great quantity of venom injected 

 by the long fangs of the jararaca, the bushmaster, and 

 their fellows that renders their bite so generally fatal. 



