264 SPECIES OF SNAKES 101 



of Eve, sometimes pays off her share of the curse 

 on their heels. Here the truth is. 



Within the limits of our Indian Empire, including 

 Burmah and Ceylon, there are at present known to 

 naturalists two hundred and sixty-four species of 

 snakes. Twenty-seven of these are sea-serpents, 

 which never leave the sea, and could not if they 

 would. The remaining two hundred and thirty- 

 seven species comprise samples of every size and 

 pattern of limbless reptile found on this globe, from 

 the gigantic python, which crushes a jackal and 

 swallows it whole, to the little burrowing Typhlops, 

 whose proportions are those of an earthworm and 

 its food white ants. 



If you have made up your mind never to touch 

 a snake or go nearer to one than you can help, then 

 I need scarcely tell you what you know already, 

 that thes|! are all alike., hideous and repulsive in 

 their aspects-being smeared from head to tail with 

 a viscous and venomous slime, which, as your 

 Shakespeare will tell you, leaves a trail even on fig- 

 leaves when they have occasion to pass over such. 

 This preparation would appear to line them inside 

 as well as out, for there is no lack of ancient and 

 modern testimony to the fact that they " slaver " 

 their prey all over before swallowing it, that it may 

 slide the more easily down their ghastly throats. 

 Their eye is cruel and stony, and possesses a peculiar 

 property known as " fascination," which places their 

 victims entirely at their mercy. They have also 



