STRANGE CASE OF SNAKE BITE 
57 
[The above information should give great satisfaction to 
the gentlemen who subscribed to the Trout Acclimatisation 
Association, as it practically proves that their public-spirited 
action has resulted in success, and that the trout are now well 
established in the streams on the Aberdare Range. Their 
progress should, however, be carefully watched, and numbers 
of young fish should be transferred to other streams on the 
range and to the head waters of the Morendat and Gil-gil 
rivers, and later on efforts should be made to establish them 
in the streams rising on the Mau plateau. Possibly members 
of the Society will be able to assist in this work. — Editor.] 
STRANGE CASE OF SNAKE BITE 
By Francis Burmeister. 
Last month the Masai who herds the sheep on my farm 
on the shore of Lake Naivasha saw a half-bred lamb with 
a snake hanging on to its nose. 
He promptly killed the snake, and as I happened to be 
passing, he ran to tell me. 
I first looked at the snake and saw that it was a small puff 
adder, and then at the lamb, and noticed the beads of blood 
on the nostrils where the fangs had struck. 
Naturally I expected to see the lamb fall over in convulsions 
and die, and told the Masai so. 
He, however, propounded the following quaint theory. 
As he had caught the snake and killed it outright the 
lamb would not die ; if, however, the snake had escaped and 
lived, the lamb would have died at once. 
Knowing that immediately the adder struck, all the poison 
in the glands had been ejected, I was incredulous. 
However, beyond some subsequent swelling of the head and 
neck, the lamb suffered no inconvenience. 
I am entirely at a loss to account for it, as I am certain 
it was a puff adder, about eighteen inches long. 
Perhaps some one will enlighten me ? 
