156 INDIAN SNAKE POISONS, 



it may be urged — (1.) That the number of poisououa 

 snakes in the country is so enormous that it is practi- 

 cally impossible to lessen them if the whole revenue of 

 India be used for the purpose. (2.) That the snakes 

 chiefly inhabit the jungles, where it is very difficult to 

 attack them, and that it is only when natives go into out- 

 of-the-way places that they incur the risk of being bitten, 

 (3.) That the practice of giving rewards for capturing 

 snakes, instead of diminishing the number of snakes 

 would tend to increase them, as men would take to 

 breeding snakes for the rewards instead of catching them. 

 The number of snakes in India must, in truth, be 

 enormous, but we have no grounds for forming the 

 slightest idea as to what their number may be, and 

 therefore there is no evidence, one way or the other, 

 whether they can be exterminated or not. Large sums 

 have been disbursed in certain districts with little 

 efieot, but in other cases a distinct diminution in mor- 

 tality has occurred. But it should be stated that 

 often large amounts have been disbursed without any 

 safeguard as to whether the reward was given for 

 poisonous snakes only. I have known rewards in large 

 numbers paid in a district for the harmless Lycodon, 

 and I am by no means sure that the disbursing official 

 was, in the end, convinced that the object of his perse- 

 cution was harmless. Still, in another district where a 

 perfectly competent officer supervised the distribution, 

 the snakes were brought in in undiminished numbers 



