68 THE LAND-MARKS OF 



In the latter assertion recent authorities will 

 concur, but certainly not in the former. An in- 

 nocent snake succumbs to the poison of a veno- 

 mous one as certainly as does a dog, though not so 

 rapidly, by reason of its anatomical conformation. 

 Redi's A curious tale is told by Fontana, when dis- 



viper-catcher • i , . n i -r 



Jacques. ' cussmg the taste of the venom. It appears 

 that Redi had a viper-catcher named Jacques 

 who boasted that he could swallow spoonfuls of 

 the venom of the viper, and Redi declared that 

 he had been seen to do so ; he does not, how- 

 ever, assert that he was ever a witness to the 

 fact. With all due deference to the memory of 

 the late M. Jacques, one cannot place implicit 

 confidence in his statements since he belonged to 

 a class of men as celebrated for their tricks as the 

 snake-charmers of Bengal. Very few people in 

 India have not heard of an instance in which 

 a snake-charmer has offered to let himself be 

 bitten by one of his snakes, in order to demon- 

 strate the value of a certain antidote he pos- 

 sesses ; the snakes in all such cases have had 

 the' poison-gland removed previously, so that 

 although wounds are caused if the animal bites, 

 Tricks of old no poison Can be iniected. The old viper- 



viper-catchers ± j ± 



ofBurope. catchers of Europe were in the habit of stop- 



