OF CORNWALL. 283 
the bite of a viper oi any kind, is, that the patient, or fome one 
for him, fhould immediately fuck the wound, having firft wafhed 
his mouth with warm oil, and holding fome of this in his mouth 
whilft the fudtion is performing, to prevent any inflammation of the 
lips and tongue from the heat of the poifon, after which the faid 
learned author prefcribes emetics worked off with oil and warm 
water:” but without thefe precautions (which do not always occur 
to perfons in hafte, and in torture), it is certainly very dangerous 
to fuck the poifon; Matthiolus gives us an inftance ,n of a perfon 
who having his finger bitten by a viper, in the agonies of death put 
it in his mouth, with the blood fucked in the poifon, and died on 
the fpot. It may not be amifs therefore in this place to fuggeft 
a more harmlefs remedy, adminiftered by a good Lady of my 
neighbourhood * : A man, falling afleep after mowing in the 
garden, had his breaft flung by an adder ; waked by the pain of 
the wound, he Ihook off the adder from his Ihirt, and imme- 
diately applied to the Lady of the houfe ; fhe ordered a young 
pigeon with its anus clofe to the wound to be applied ; the pigeon 
(whofe reciprocal contraction and dilatation in thofe parts is 
well known) foon fwelled, fickened, and died ; a fecond pigeon 
was adminiftered to the place infected in like manner, and kept 
clofe to the bread: for fome time, till it grew faint, and could draw 
no more ; the man was entirely cured, and the fecond pigeon was 
found dead the next morning. 
On the northern coaft of Cornwall, about Stratton, I had a fnake Snake 
brought me : It differs from the viper in the weftern parts of this 
county in that it is larger, of a browner colour, not fo foon incenf- 
ed, nor fo poifonous : It is very prolific, and generally lays its eggs 
in heaps of rotten horfe-dung; out of one heap of which, as I was 
informed by my hoft at Kilkhampton, he had feen, at the Barton 
houfe of Lancels near Stratton, three hundred taken out at one time. 
The lame perfon fome years fince killed one fnake four feet two inches 
long, and proportionably thick : my guide alfo from Kilkhampton 
affured me, that he had this year (1757) killed one about four feet 
long. The country people have remarked two forts of them ; one 
fort has a white garland round its neck, with a fharp tail like the 
point of a rufti ; the other fort has a yellow garland, with a fhorter 
and more obtufe tail. 
In the iflands of Scilly they have neither adder, fnake, or any of the 
ferpent kind ; whether the earth is here too fait, for Pliny obferves, 
and to him affents Dr. Plott ( Oxfordlhire, page 191), that brackilh 
earth is freer from vermin than any other) ; or whether the lands 
» Wolfg. Franzius Animal. Hift. page 519. * Late Mrs. BafTet of Tehidy. 
are 
