THE HORNED ADDER. 
107 
tobacco juice with impunity. The Hottentots will often kill the Puff Adder by spitting in its 
face the juice of chewed tobacco, or making it bite the end of a stick which has been rubbed in 
the tobacco oil found in all pipes that have been long used without being cleaned. 
The Bushmen are in the habit of procuring from the teeth of this serpent the poison with 
which they arm their tiny but most fearful arrows. In the capture of the Puff Adder they 
display very great courage and address. Taking advantage of the reptile’s sluggish habits, 
they plant their bare feet upon its neck before it has quite made up its reptilian mind to 
action, and, holding it firmly down, cut off its head and extract the poison at their leisure. 
In order to make it adhesive to the arrow point, it is mixed with the glutinous juice of the 
amaryllis. 
There seems to be no certain remedies for the bite of the Puff Adder. Ammonia appears 
to be the least inefficacious substance for that purpose, and the natives occasionally attempt 
to heal the injury by splitting a living fowl across the breast, and applying the still 
palpitating halves to the wound. There is a kind of seed called the “ gentleman bean,” 
which is said to have a beneficial effect. If one of these beans be placed on the recently 
inflicted wound, it adheres with great firmness, and is said to absorb the poison from the 
system, and to fall off as soon as this object is achieved. The Bushmen are in the habit of 
swallowing the poison whenever they kill a Puff Adder and do not need its venomous store 
for their arrows, hoping thereby to render themselves proof against its effects. When exam- 
ined under the microscope, the poison resolves itself into minute crystalline spiculse, not 
unlike those of Epsom salts, which must be kept perfectly dry or they will soon vanish from 
the glass on which they are placed. 
The color of the Puff Adder is brown, chequered with dark brown and white, and with 
a reddish band between the eyes. The under parts are paler than the upper. 
Several other deadly serpents of the same country are closely allied to the puff adder. 
The first is the Das Adder, or Diver Jack ( Clotho nasicornis) of the colonists, remarkable 
for the long curved horn or spine upon the nose, formed by the peculiar development of the 
scales over the nostril. This curious structure is only found in the male. In color it is much 
darker than the puff adder, being black, marbled with a paler hue, and decorated with 
sundry lozenge-shaped spots along the back. 
The Berg Adder {Clotho dtropos ) is another of these fearful reptiles. As its name 
denotes, it is found more among the hills and stony ranges than on the plains, but is not 
unfrequently found upon the flats, and will sometimes intrude into very awkward positions, 
such as the floor of a hut, or even the bed upon which some wearied man is about to cast 
himself. It is not quite so poisonous as the puff adder, though its looks are quite as unpre- 
possessing, and it never bites unless purposely irritated or trodden upon. 
It is an ugly, thick-bodied, slow-crawling creature, with a suddenly tapering tail and a 
most evil looking head. It is not a large reptile, its average length being about eighteen 
inches. Its color is olive-gray, marbled on the sides, and decorated along the back with four 
rows of dark squared spots. 
Yet one more species of this genus deserves a passing notice. This is the Hoexed Adder 
{Clotho cornuta ), sometimes, but erroneously, called the Cerastes, a term that is rightly applied 
to another Serpent shortly to be described. It sometimes goes by the popular name of 
Horxsmah. It derives its name of Horned Adder from the groups of little thread-like horns 
that are seen on the head, one group appearing above each eye. In some works of Natural 
History, it is called the Plumed Yiper, in allusion to these curious groups. It is not very 
graceful in form, being decidedly short, squat, and puffy in shape, but is very prettily 
marked, its body being richly marbled with chestnut, covered with a multitude of minute 
dots, and variegated with four rows of dark spots along the back, two rows running on each 
side of the vertebral line. 
