September i, i888.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 193 
SOME POPULAR ERRORS ABOUT SNAKES. 
The following is the substance of a locturo recently 
delivered at Trevandrum by Lieut. H. S. Harold 
Forgusoii : — 
From tho earliest ages snakes have boon surrounded 
by a cloud of myth, and it is only within a very 
recunt period that tho cold light of science has been 
able to dissipate these mists of error. Their habits 
have readily lent themselves to darken the air of 
mystery that has always surrounded them; their 
stealthy gliding motion, their fixed and glittering 
eyes, the deadly nature of the poison of tho venomous 
kinds, all these attributes have been tho subject of 
remark, and it is not to be wondered at tliat the pri- 
mitive man worshipped them as the emblems of 
death and destruction, and that as civilisation pro- 
gressed these attributes have become crystallised in 
tho metaphor of tho poet aud stereotyped, as it were 
in tho proverbs of every nation. All sorts of ovil 
qualities have become associated with tho very namo 
of snake, and tho innocent havo bad to suffer with 
tho guilty An additional and very potent sourco 
of prejudico, favourable or otherwise, has been that 
in ulmost all tho great religious system of tho 
world, toth past and present, Buakes have been 
in someway mixed up, whether for good or evil. 
A good deal of misapprehension exists on the subject 
of a snake's way of moving. The Hebrew King, the 
wisest of men, says that this is one of the things that , 
is too hard for him to find out. ' There are three 
things which are too wonderful for me, yea four which 
I kuow not,' ho says, and tie second of theso is 'the 
way of a serpout upon a rock.' Truly it is a wonder- 
ful modo of progression, and for many a year it re- 
mained to men of science aa much a mystery as it 
was to Solomon. Many people are under the impression 
that the absence of limbs is a great disadvantage to 
Bnaki h, but tho fact is they have been so wonderfully 
modified that their ribs take the place of limbs, so that 
instead of having only two pairs, as other vertebrates 
havo, they havo sometimes over two hundred. Aris- 
totle, who, in natural history, was far in advance of 
his own generation, and, indeed, of many subsequent 
ones, mixes up fact and fiction very curiously in regard 
to snakes, aud in the matter of ribs he remarks they 
havo as many as there arc days in tho month, tho fact 
being. that the number varies and reaches as many as 
four hundred in the pythons. The movement of the ribs 
was firBt remarked by Sir Joseph Banks, aud Mr. after- 
wards Sir Everard.Hoine, and the latter brought it to 
notice in a papor on the subject in which he likened 
the movement of the ribs to that of tho legs of a 
catci pillar. If tho vertebra of any snake be examined 
it will be seen that they aro articulated togotherbv a 
cup and ball point which gives the maximum power of 
movement in every direction ; to tho sides of each 
vertebra a pair of ribs is inovably jointed, and these 
again arc fixed at the other extremity by muscles to the 
Bides of the broad ventral scales so that each vertebra 
supports a pail of ribs which act like a pair of legs 
having the extremities connected together by a broad 
plate ; the hind part of this plato is free, aud when tho 
ribs aro moved forward this end is raised so that it 
takes hold of any roughness or irregularity of the 
ground. This movement is not rapid, but when pro- 
gressing in this way u >nakc moves in a direct line and < 
not with those indented glides" that are usually seen, 
when rapid motion is required some portion of the 
body iu front gains a purchase by means of the ventral 
shi. l<ls on some projectiou in tho ground, tho ribs are 
diawn together on alternate tides throwing tho body 
into alternate curves, some portion of this hinder 
part of tho body gains a purchase and the fore 
part is straightened out. Ouo often sees a *nak<< 
represented as moving forwards in a series of 
vertical coils ; hut this is an error. Thorn are, 
however, wonderful accounts of simki'K in Australia 
whirh aru mid to move by extending their bodlM to 
their lull length, then bringing up the posterior 
portion in a loop aud so springing lorward with amnzing 
rspiditv; but this wauts confirmation. The old story 
36 
of the snake which puts its tail into its mouth and 
rolls dowu a hill like a hoop is, of courso, a myth. 
Tho rapidity with which they move has been much 
exaggerated, and even such an authority as Professor 
Owen says of them " They can outleap tho Jerboa and 
suddenly loosing the coils of their crouching spiral, 
they can spring into the air and seize the bird upon 
the wing," — a feat which, I am sure, no one over saw 
performed. The fact is we kuow very little indeed of 
snakes at liberty in their natural haunts, audi think 
the exaggerated notion of their rapidity is due to the 
fuct that they can get away easily into where one 
cannot follow, and so appear to move off with great 
speed ; but if you get a snake iu a room or anywhere 
in the open you will find that it cannot go at all fast. 
I have followed a fairly largo snake down a ditch, and 
found that I could easily keep up with it at a fastish 
walk, so that 1 consider halt the accounts one reads of 
snakes almost flying arc gross exaggerations. Iu 
Miss Hopley's book on suakes there is an account 
ox a clergyman in Australia who was chased by 
a snake, aud he is described as taking to his 
heels with all speed, knowing the vicious nature of 
the creature. " Looking back he saw the reptile pur- 
suing him witb strides or bounds, stretching itself to 
gist lull length, then bringing up its tail and springing 
forward again with terrific vigour. In its excitemant 
it seemed to Uy." For "its" here 1 should ratter read 
"his." A man running away in a fright is hardly 
likely to be a dispassionate observer of his pursuer's 
motions, and I should be iucl ; ned to class this evidence 
with that of a native of India who had been an eyewit- 
ness of the fall of a large meteorite. He could not 
give many facts, but on one point he was absolutely 
certain that the meteorite had chased him for a long 
way through the jungle. 
Having got the snake in motion, imagino him next 
in search of prey. This is how Pepys, writing about 
1G61, quotes the description of the way iu which the 
harmless Euglish snake was supposed to catch its prey. 
"They observe,'' he says, " when the lark is soared to 
the highest and do crawl till they come to be just un- 
derneath them, and there they place themselves with 
their mouth uppermost and there as it is conceived they 
do eject poison upou tho bird, for the bird do suddenly 
come down again in its course of a circle and falls di- 
rectly into the mouth of the snake." Hero the error is 
obvious. In the first place, the snake has no poison to 
eject, and, secondly, if it had it certainly could not 
eject it like a rillo bullet. Iu this more critical 
age such a 6tatemeut would not remain long un- 
challenged, but those were the days in which they 
believed in swallows hybernatiug in tho mud, and 
such liko fables. It is easy to see how tho error arose. 
Somo one saw a snake in tho grass, and a lark 
soaring in the heavens happened to alight close to 
the snake who at once seized it. The whole affair 
v a puro chance, but a story is founded on it and 
l'olse deductions drawn. Now snakes are said to 
attract their victims within striking or grasping dis- 
'9i :e by somo marvellous power of fasciuation which 
they, alone of all the animal kingdom, aro supposed 
to possess. Now, any one who has watched the de- 
meanour of live animals given to snakes in captivity 
with the hopo of seeing this marvellous power ex- 
ercisod mnst have been grievously disappointed. 
Chickens, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, all move about 
with au inter absence of fear of thoir deadly cuomy, 
and I havo seen a hen make use of a python to 
roost on. How, then, has this fabled power como 
to bo attributed to snakes? There are several expla- 
nations which w ill fit the several circumstances under 
which the supposed fascination is described as bring 
e orcised. Only the other day, in the columns 
pi the Matbroit Mail, there was a letter iu which 
tho writer described how ho had long doubted 
about fascination, but at Inst had become con- 
vinced from his own observation that tho power really 
exist -d, and then ho weut on to .-ay how ho hud seen 
a l umber of birds flying round a .snake iu a tree, aud 
dashing themselves almost into its face, Now had 
that same writer seen mo on a certain occasion 
ho might very well on the same grounds have 
