18 THE START [chap, i 



not poisonous, so that it can be handled freely. It feeds 

 on other serpents, and ^\t11 kiU a rattlesnake as big 

 as itself, being immune to the rattlesnake venom. Mr. 

 Ditmars, of the Bronx Zoo, has made many interesting 

 experiments with these king-snakes. I have had them 

 in my own possession. They are good-natured, and can 

 generally be handled with impunity, but I have known 

 them to bite, whereas Doctor BrazU informed me that 

 it was almost impossible to make the mussvuraraa bite a 

 man. The king-snake will feed greedUy on other snakes 

 in the presence of man — I knew of one case where it 

 partly swallowed another snake while both were in a 

 small boy's pocket. It is immune to viper poison, but 

 it is not immune to colubrine poison. A couple of 

 years ago I was informed of a case where one of these 

 king-snakes was put into an enclosure with an Indian 

 snake-eating cobra, or hamadryad, of about the same size. 

 It IdUed the cobra, but made no eflfbrt to swallow it, 

 and very soon showed the effects of the cobra poison. I 

 beheve it afterwards died, but, imfortunately, I have mis- 

 laid my notes, and cannot now remember the details of 

 the incident. 



Doctor Brazil informed me that the mussurama, like 

 the king-snake, was not immune to the colubrine poison. 

 A mussurama in his possession, which had with im- 

 punity killed and eaten several rattlesnakes and repre- 

 sentatives of the lachesis genus, also killed and ate a 

 venomous coral -snake, but shortly afterwards itself died 

 from the effects of the poison. It is one of the many 

 puzzles of nature that these American serpents which 

 kill poisonous serpents should only have grown immune 

 to the poison of the most dangerous American poisonous 

 serpents, the pit-vipers, and should not have become 

 immune to the poison of the coral-snakes, which are 



