12 THE START [chap, i 



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. Moreover, even between 

 these two allied genera of pit- vipers, the differences in 

 the action of the poison are sufficiently marked to be 

 easily recognizable, and to render the most effective 

 anti-venomous serum for each slightly different from 

 the other. However, they are near enough alike to 

 make this difference, in practice, of comparatively small 

 consequence. In practice the same serum can be used 

 to neutralize the effect of either, and, as will be seen 

 later on, the snake that is immune to one kind of 

 venom is also immune to the other. 



But the effect of the venom of the poisonous colu- 

 brine snakes is totally different from, although to the 

 fuU as deadly as, the effect of the poison of the rattle- 

 snake or jararaca. The serum that is an antidote as 

 regards the pit-viper is wholly or wellnigh useless as 

 regards the colubrines. The animal that is immune to 

 the bite of one may not be immune to the bite of the 

 other. The bite of a cobra or other colubrine poisonous 

 snake is more painful in its immediate effects than is the 

 bite of one of the big vipers. The victim suffers more. 

 There is a greater effect on the nerve-centres, but less 

 swelling of the wound itself, and, whereas the blood of 

 the rattlesnake's victim coagulates, the blood of the 

 victim of an elapine snake— that is, of one of the only 

 poisonous American colubrines — becomes watery and 

 incapable of coagulation. 



Snakes are highly specialized in every way, including 

 their prey. Some Uve exclusively on warm-blooded 



