favourable impressions of our fellow-creatures; but we may say, in defence of human nature, that the most frightful of reptiles is worshipped by the most uncultivated and barbarous of mankind...

From this general picture of the serpent tribe, one great distinction obviously presents itself; namely, into those that are venomous, and those that are wholly destitute of poison. To the first belong the Viper, the Rattle Snake, the Cobra di Capello, and all their affinities; to the other, the Common Black Snake, the Liboya, the Boiguacu, the Amphisbæna, and various others that, though destitute of venom, do not cease to be formidable. I will therefore give their history separately, beginning with the venomous class, as they have the strongest claims to our notice and attention.

CHAP. IX.

Of Venomous Serpents in general.·

THE poison of serpents has been for ages one of the greatest objects of human consideration. To us who seldom feel the vengeful wound, it is merely a subject of curiosity; but to those placed in the midst of the serpent tribe, who are every day exposed to some new disaster, it becomes a matter of the most serious importance. To remedy the bite of a serpent is considered among our

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physicians as one of the slightest operations in medicine; but among the physicians of the east, the antidotes for this calamity make up the bulk of their dispensaries. In our colder climates, the venom does not appear with that instantaneous operation which it exhibits in the warmer regions; for either its powers are less exquisite, or our fluids are not carried round in such rapid cir culation.

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In all countries, however, the poison of the serpent is sufficiently formidable to deserve notice, and to excite our attention to its nature and effects. It will therefore in the first place be proper to describe its seat in the animal, as also the instrument by which the wound is made and the poison injected. In all this venomous class of reptiles, whether the viper, the rattle-snake, or the cobra di capello, there are two large teeth or fangs that issue from the upper jaw, and that hang out beyond the lower. The rest of the snake tribe are destitute of these: and it is most probable that wherever these fangs are wanting, the animal is harmless; on the contrary wherever they are found, it is to be avoided as the most pestilent enemy. These are the instruments that seem to place the true distinction between animals of the serpent kind; the wounds which these fangs inflict produce the most dangerous symptoms; the wounds inflicted by the teeth only are attended with nothing more than the ordinary consequences attending the bite of any other animal. Our first great attention, therefore, upon seeing a serpent, should be directed to the teeth. If it has the fang teeth, it is to be placed among the venomous class if it wants them, it may be set down as inoffensive.

I am not ignorant that many serpents are said to be dangerous whose jaws are unfurnished with fangs; but it is most probable that our terrors only have furnished these animals with venom; for of all the tribe whose teeth are thus formed, not one will be found to have a bag for containing poison, nor a conduit for injecting it into the wound. The Black Snake, the Liboya, the Blind Worm, and a hundred others that might be mentioned, have their teeth of an equal size, fixed into the jaws, and with no other apparatus for inflicting a dangerous wound than a dog or a lizard; but it is otherwise with the venomous tribe we are now describing; these are well furnished, not only with an elaboratory where the poison is formed, but a canal by which it is conducted to the jaw, a bag under the tooth for keeping it ready for every occasion, and also an aperture in the tooth itself for injecting it into the wound. To be more particular, the glands that serve to fabricate this venomous fluid are situated on each side of the head, behind the eyes, and have their canals leading from thence to the bottom of the fangs in the upper jaw, where they empty into a kind of bladder, from whence the fangs on each side are seen to grow. The venom contained in this bladder is a yellowish, thick, tasteless liquor, which injected into the blood is death, yet which may be swallowed without any danger. 47

The fangs that give the wound come next under observation; they are large in proportion to the size of the animal that bears them; crooked, yet sharp enough to inflict a ready wound. They grow.one on each side, and sometimes, two, from two moveable bones in the upper jaw, which by sliding back

ward or forward have a power of erecting or depressing the teeth at pleasure. In these bones are also fixed many teeth, but no way venomous, and only serving to take and hold the animal's preys Besides this apt disposition of the fangs, they are hollow within, and have an opening towards the point like the slit of a pen, through which, when the fang is pressed down upon the bladder where it grows, there is seen to issue a part of the venom that lay below. To describe this operation at once, when the serpent is irritated to give a venomous wound, it opens its formidable jaws to the widest extent; the moveable bones of the upper jaw slide forward; the fangs that lay before inclining are thus erected; they are struck with force into the flesh of the obnoxious person; by meeting resistance at the points, they press upon the bladders of venom from whence they grow; the venom issues up through the hollow of the tooth; and is pressed out through, its slit into the wound, which by this time the tooth has made in the skin. Thus from a slight puncture, and the infusion of a drop of venom scarce larger than the head of a pin, the part is quickly inflamed, and, without a proper antidote, the whole frame contaminated.

The appearances which this venom produces are different, according to the serpent that wounds, or the season, or the strength of the animal that strikes the blow. If a viper inflicts, the wound, and the remedy, be neglected, the symptoms are not without danger. It first causes an acute pain in the place affected, attended with a swelling, first red, and afterwards livid. This by degrees. spreads to the neighbouring parts; great faintness, and a

quick, though low and interrupted pulse ensues; to this succeed great sickness at the stomach, bilious and convulsivé vomitings, cold sweats, pains about the navel, and death itself. But the violence of these symptoms depends much on the season' of the year, the difference of the climate, the size or age of the animal, and the depth and situation of the wound. These symptoms are much more violent, and succeed each other more rapidly after the bite of a rattle-snake; but when the person is bit by the cobra di capello, he dies in an hour, his whole frame being dissolved into a putrid mass of corruption.

Nothing surely can more justly excite our wonder than that so small a quantity of venom should produce such powerful and deadly effects. If the venom itself be examined through a microscope, it will be found to shoot into little crystals that, to an imagination already impressed with its potency, look like so many darts fit for entering the blood-vessels, and wounding their tender coats. But all these darts are wholly of our own making; the softest, mildest fluid whatever, possessed of any consistency, will form crystals under the eye of the microscope, and put on an appearance exactly like the venom of the viper. In fact, this venom has no acid taste whatever; and to all experiments that our senses can make upon it, appears a slimy insipid fluid. Charas, who often tasted it, assures us of the fact; and asserts, that it may be taken inwardly without any sensible effects or any prejudice to the constitution. But the famous experiments that were tried by Redi and others, in the presence of the Great Duke of Tus

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