16 THE START [chap, i 



present absolutely insoluble is why some snakes should be 

 so vicious and others absolutely placid and good-tempered. 



After removing the vicious harmless snake, the doctor 

 warned us to get away from the table, and his attendant 

 put on it, in succession, a very big lachesis — of the kind 

 called bushmaster— and a big rattlesnake. Each coiled 

 menacingly, a formidable brute ready to attack anything 

 that approached. Then the attendant adroitly dropped 

 his iron crook on the neck of each in succession, seized 

 it right behind the head, and held it toward the doctor. 

 The snake's mouth was in each case wide open, and the 

 great fangs erect and very evident. It would not have 

 been possible to have held an African ring-necked cobra 

 in such fashion, because the ring-neck would have ejected 

 its venom through the fangs into the eyes of the on- 

 lookers. There was no danger in this case, and the 

 doctor inserted a shallow glass saucer into the mouth of 

 the snake behind the fangs, permitted it to eject its 

 poison, and then himself squeezed out the remaining 

 poison from the poison-bags through the fangs. From 

 the big lachesis came a large quantity of yeUow venom, 

 a liquid which speedily crystalhzed into a number of 

 minute crystals. The rattlesnake yielded a much less 

 quantity of white venom, which the doctor assured us 

 was far more active than the yellow lachesis venom. 

 Then each snake was returned to its box unharmed. 



After this the doctor took out of a box and presented 

 to me a fine, handsome, nearly black snake, an indi- 

 vidual of the species called the mussurama. This is in 

 my eyes perhaps the most interesting serpent in the 

 world. It is a big snake, four or five feet long, some- 

 times even longer, nearly black, lighter below, with a 

 friendly, placid temper. It lives exclusively on other 

 snakes, and is completely immune to the poison of 



