Dec. 14, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
743 
HISSING OF A SNAKE. 
F. W. FitzSimons, director of the Port 
Elizabeth Museum, says that snakes change their 
skins several times a year before reaching the 
adult state. The main reason why snakes cast 
their skins is to provide for increased growth. 
The skin of a snake does not grow with the 
growth of the body, as is the case with warm¬ 
blooded animals. So when it begins to get too 
tight, it is discarded. 
The hissing of a snake, Mr. FitzSimons ex¬ 
plains, according to the Westminster Gazette, is 
caused by the long sack-like lung being inflated 
with air, which is forcibly expelled through the 
glottis and nostrils. The puff adder makes the 
loudest and most prolonged hiss of any South 
African snake. When alarmed, snakes hiss with 
the object of frightening off their enemies. If 
snakes were not able to make their presence 
known, they would be frequently trodden upon 
and injured by the various creatures of veld, 
forest and mountain. 
An animal will often manifest the wildest 
alarm at the sight of a snake or on hearing one 
hiss, although it has never before come in con¬ 
tact with one of these reptiles. “This power of 
transmitting experiences is,” remarks Mr. Fitz¬ 
Simons, “a wonderful provision of nature, for 
if every living creature had to learn entirely by 
personal experience to avoid its enemies and find 
out what kinds of food were wholesome or the 
reverse, a great number of species would rapidly 
become extinct.” 
Among the snakes described is the African 
python. The. statements in regard to the length 
of these reptiles are very conflicting. Mr. Fitz¬ 
Simons says he has examined many and the 
longest was twenty feet. The average length 
he puts down as about sixteen feet, the circum¬ 
ference at the thickest part being about eighteen 
inches. . Pythons are very fond of water and 
often lie along the branches of trees with their 
eyes fixed upon the ground below. 
If something good to eat comes along, the 
snake simply drops upon it, the end of the tail 
gripping tight to the branch. Pythons are not 
venomous, and the tales about them swallowing 
people have never been thoroughly authenticated. 
Pythons will show fight when wounded or cor¬ 
nered, and at these times it is distinctly danger¬ 
ous for man if alone to tackle them. 
“I have had much experience of snakes,” 
writes Mr. FitzSimons, “and have made it my 
business to observe carefully their habits and 
ways both in their natural condition in the wild 
state and captivity, and in no instance have I 
ever known a snake to fascinate an animal in 
the manner it is alleged to do.” He has seen 
two species, which he mentions, many a time in 
trees surrounded by a crowd of fluttering, chat¬ 
tering, excited birds. But the birds wereTot, he 
says, fascinated by the snake; they were en¬ 
deavoring to intimidate it in order'to frighten 
it from their haunts. 
According to one authority, about half a 
drop of Indian cobra venom is sufficient to kill 
a man. That means, as Mr. FitzSimons states, 
that a full sized cobra would be able to eject 
enough venom at a single full and complete bite 
to kill about twenty men. The Indian cobra 
yields as much as twenty drops, and Dr. Planna 
mentions having obtained as much as twenty- 
eight drops. 
In experiments with the venom of the Cape 
cobra,_ Mr. FitzSimons found that one drop di¬ 
luted in a little water and injected into the tissues 
of the leg of a large monkey killed it in half an 
hour’s time. A fraction of a drop was sufficient 
to kill a rat and a fowl within half an hour. 
Judging from the effects of cobra venom on the 
higher animals, Mr. FitzSimons considers- that 
one full drop is a fatal dose for a strong, healthy 
man. 
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