1 877.] 
The Balance of Nature. 
147 
or intercepted in making their escape, ever a6t upon the 
offensive towards man. In his extensive experience he had 
doubtless never met with such a case. Our own observa- 
tions agree in this respedb with his, but for all this we are 
not prepared to deny that the ophiophagous cobra — a speci- 
men of which is now to be seen alive in the Zoological 
Gardens — will, under certain circumstances, attack passers- 
by. Waterton’s great error was a readiness to assume that 
what he had never seen, or perhaps never had had the op- 
portunity of seeing, must be imaginary. But if, as we have 
good reason to believe, he is wrong in this particular, he 
has made ample amends by exposing and refuting a multi- 
tude of idle stories about serpents which are related even 
in books of some pretensions to scientific accuracy. As re- 
gards our English serpents, Waterton seems to apply the 
name of “ adder ” to the common “ water-snake ” (Matrix 
torquata), but he underrates the venom of the viper : death 
has undoubtedly resulted from its bite, even in England. 
As a controversialist Waterton was truly formidable, if 
somewhat too outspoken for modern tastes. Any error in 
the writings of an opponent he was sure to detedt, and to 
expose without mercy. Witness his treatment of Audubon’s 
rattlesnake, figured with its poison-fangs curved the wrong 
way. Upon pretentious dabblers in Natural History, who 
seek to force themselves into notoriety by retailing the re- 
sults and sometimes the blunders of others, he was severe. 
He “ scourged two generations of quacks,” and we some- 
times think he might do good service, even in the present 
day, could he be roused up from his slumbers beneath the 
old oaks in Walton Park. 
We never heard of his being connected with any scien- 
tific society ; perhaps he might feel unwilling to place him- 
self upon a level with “ Diabolus Gander,” and others of 
his contemporaries who were Fellows of every existing 
society, and would doubtless have been “Fellows” of Vaux- 
hall and Ranelagh had those establishments been original 
enough to assume a semi-scientific disguise. His paramount 
merit is as an observer of phenomena, and in this depart- 
ment he has had few equals and no superior. In order to 
see with his own eyes he deemed no trouble or danger too 
great, and whatsoever he saw he describes faithfully and 
clearly, overlooking nothing and exaggerating nothing. The 
great misfortune is that all his writings have not seen the 
light, and that he committed to paper not one-tenth part of 
the fadts that he observed. He has left us, as it were, 
merely a sample of his labours. 
