84 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 



noxious object, it retains its hold with great determination, and some 

 considerable exertion is often necessary to detach it."* The traveller 

 Burchell remarks of this snake that its venom is said to be most 

 fatal, taking effect so rapidly as to leave the person who has the mis- 

 fortune to be bitten no chance of saving his life, but by instantly 

 cutting out the flesh surrounding the wound. Although I have 

 often met with this snake," he adds, " yet, happily, no opportunity 

 occurred of witnessing the effects of its poison ; but, from the uni- 

 versal dread in which it is held, I have no doubt of its being one of 

 the most venomous species of Southern Africa. There is a pecu- 



Fig. 21.— The Unadorned Puff Adder. 



liarity which renders it more dangerous, and which ought to be 

 known to every person liable to fall in with it. Unlike the generality 

 of Snakes, which make a spring or dart forward when irritated, the 

 Puff Adder, it is said, throws itself backwards, so that those who should 

 be ignorant of this fact would place themselves in the very direction 

 of death, while imagining that by so doing they were escaping the 

 danger. The natives, by keeping always in front, are enabled to 

 destroy it without much risk. The Snakes of South Africa, as of 

 Europe, lie concealed in their holes in a torpid state during the 



* In "Chapman's Travels in the Interior of South Africa" (vol. ii., p. 59), we 

 read — "May 19th. I lost my best dog, Caesar. He had seized a large Puff 

 Adder by the tail, and shook it. When the snake was released it darted at the 

 dog's face, and having fixed its fangs in its cheek, stuck there like a bull-dog 

 until it was killed. The dog only survived ten minutes." — Ed. 



