Through the Brazilian Wilderness | Page 5

subfamilies or genera--whether they are called
families, subfamilies, or genera would depend, I suppose, largely upon
the varying personal views of the individual describer on the subject of
herpetological nomenclature. One genus includes the rattlesnakes, of
which the big Brazilian species is as dangerous as those of the southern
United States. But the large majority of the species and individuals of
dangerous snakes in tropical America are included in the genus lachecis.
These are active, vicious, aggressive snakes without rattles. They are
exceedingly poisonous. Some of them grow to a very large size, being
indeed among the largest poisonous snakes in the world--their only
rivals in this respect being the diamond rattlesnake of Florida, one of
the African mambas, and the Indian hamadryad, or snake-eating cobra.
The fer-de-lance, so dreaded in Martinique, and the equally dangerous
bushmaster of Guiana are included in this genus. A dozen species are
known in Brazil, the biggest one being identical with the Guiana
bushmaster, and the most common one, the jararaca, being identical, or
practically identical with the fer-de-lance. The snakes of this genus,
like the rattlesnakes and the Old World vipers and puff-adders, possess
long poison-fangs which strike through clothes or any other human
garment except stout leather. Moreover, they are very aggressive, more
so than any other snakes in the world, except possibly some of the
cobras. As, in addition, they are numerous, they are a source of really
frightful danger to scantily clad men who work in the fields and forests,
or who for any reason are abroad at night.
The poison of venomous serpents is not in the least uniform in its
quality. On the contrary, the natural forces--to use a term which is
vague, but which is as exact as our present-day knowledge permits--
that have developed in so many different families of snakes these
poisoned fangs have worked in two or three totally different fashions.

Unlike the vipers, the colubrine poisonous snakes have small fangs, and
their poison, though on the whole even more deadly, has entirely
different effects, and owes its deadliness to entirely different qualities.
Even within the same family there are wide differences. In the jararaca
an extraordinary quantity of yellow venom is spurted from the long
poison-fangs. This poison is secreted in large glands which, among
vipers, give the head its peculiar ace-of-spades shape. The rattlesnake
yields a much smaller quantity of white venom, but, quantity for
quantity, this white venom is more deadly. It is the great quantity of
venom injected by the long fangs of the jararaca, the bushmaster, and
their fellows that renders their bite so generally fatal. Moreover, even
between these two allied genera of pit-vipers, the differences in the
action of the poison are sufficiently marked to be easily recognizable,
and to render the most effective anti-venomous serum for each slightly
different from the other. However, they are near enough alike to make
this difference, in practice, of comparatively small consequence. In
practice the same serum can be used to neutralize the effect of either,
and, as will be seen later on, the snake that is immune to one kind of
venom is also immune to the other.
But the effect of the venom of the poisonous colubrine snakes is totally
different from, although to the full as deadly as, the effect of the poison
of the rattlesnake or jararaca. The serum that is an antidote as regards
the colubrines. The animal that is immune to the bite of one may not be
immune to the bite of the other. The bite of a cobra or other colubrine
poisonous snake is more painful in its immediate effects than is the bite
of one of the big vipers. The victim suffers more. There is a greater
effect on the nerve-centres, but less swelling of the wound itself, and,
whereas the blood of the rattlesnake's victim coagulates, the blood of
the victim of an elapine snake--that is, of one of the only poisonous
American colubrines-- becomes watery and incapable of coagulation.
Snakes are highly specialized in every way, including their prey. Some
live exclusively on warm-blooded animals, on mammals, or birds.
Some live exclusively on batrachians, others only on lizards, a few only
on insects. A very few species live exclusively on other snakes. These
include one very formidable venomous snake, the Indian hamadryad, or
giant cobra, and several non-poisonous snakes. In Africa I killed a
small cobra which contained within it a snake but a few inches shorter

than itself; but, as far as I could find out, snakes were not the habitual
diet of the African cobras.
The poisonous snakes use their venom to kill their victims, and also to
kill any possible foe which they think menaces them. Some of them are
good-tempered, and only fight if injured or seriously