TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



131 



clamours. Another curiosity which the zoologist 

 met with on this road, was one of the most poisonous 

 serpents of the country, called Urutu, which is two 

 feet long, of a dark colour, with brownish stripes, 

 and has the mark of a skull upon its head. Like 

 all the other species which are notorious for their 

 poison, for example, the surucucu*, the jararacu9U, 

 also called the schiraracat, and the jararaca-mirim 

 or de raho branco t, it lives chiefly in forests, on 

 damp dark places on the ground, under stones or 

 rotten wood, and its bite is said to occasion almost 

 certain death. Nothing terrifies the Brazilians so 

 much as the fatal bite of these animals, which being 

 so numerous are very frequently met with. The 

 few surgeons in the interior of the country almost 

 entirely decline prescribing for the bite of serpents, 

 and rather leave it to the people called curadores, 

 who use a mysterious mode of cure, and for this 

 reason possess the confidence of the common people 

 in a higher degree than the physicians, though they 

 cannot always boast of success. Shooting pains in 

 the limbs, irresistible lassitude, giddiness, vomitings, 

 pains in the eyes and temples, burning in the back, 

 blindness, bleeding at the eyes, nose, mouth, and 

 ears ; sometimes, but not always, violent salivation, 

 swelling of the face, insensibility, mortal weak- 



* Bothrops Surucucu, nob. 

 f Bothrops Neuwiedii, nob. 



X Bothrops leucurus, nob. (Spix, Serpent. Bras. 4to. tab,, 

 xxii. xxiii.) 



Kg 



