POISONOUS SNAKES, 
191 
muscles closing the jaws press upon the poison gland, forc- 
ing the poison into the wound. The poison-fangs are 
largest in the most deadly species, as the yiper ( Vipera), 
the puff adder (Clotho), the rattlesnake, and fer-de-lance 
{Trigoiiocephalits), but are small in the asps or hooded 
snakes {Naja), The bite of the rattlesnake is intensely 
painful; it is best cured by sucking, freely lancing, and by 
cauterizing the wound, and drinking large quantities (at 
least a pint) of whiskey or brandy, sufficient ordinarily to 
produce insensibility. Deaths from the bite of rattlesnakes 
are not common, while in India it is estimated that several 
thousand people annually die from the bite of the cobra — 
20,000 dying each year from the bite of snakes and the 
attacks of wild beasts.* The rattle" of the rattlesnake is 
a horny appendage formed of buttonlike compartments; 
the sound made by the rattle, which has been compared by 
some to the stridulation of a Carolina locust, or of the 
Cicada, is an alarm note, warning the intruder; the rattle 
is sprung before the snake strikes. Allied to this snake is 
the copperhead {Ancistrodon contortrix Linn.) and the 
black mocassiji {Ancistrodo7i piscivorus Linn.) In the 
water-snakes the tails are laterally compressed, while the 
poison-fangs are small. These snakes are not much over a 
metre in length, and live far from land in the East Indian 
seas. 
* In 1880 the deaths in India reported as from snake bite were 
19,060; and 212,776 siiukes were killed at a cost of over $4500 in re- 
wards. The next year (1881) there were fatally bitten 18,610 people? 
and 254,968 snakes were destroyed at a cost of nearly $5000. 
The snakes which do tlie mischief are, according to Fayrer, the 
cobra, the Biingarus coeruleiis or krait, tlie echis, and the daboia or 
Russell's viper, all of which are most conspicuous snakes, and easily 
identified. Tiiere are others, such as Bungarus fasciatus, Ophio- 
phagus elaps, which are dangerous, but comparatively rare, and 
seldom bite men; while the hydrophidse, being confined to the sea or 
estuaries, are, though very poisonous, not so dangerous to man, and 
the trimeresuri, which are both uncommon and at the same time are 
not so deadly as to endanger life. 
