SNAKES AND SNAKE-CHARMING.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3134, 14 July 1881, Page 4

SNAKES AND SNAKE-CHARMING.

At an evening lecture at the Working Men's College, Great Ormond-street, M r Arthur Nicols, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., delivered a lecture on "Snakes and Snake-charming." He expressed the opinion that the power of ," fascination " supposed to be possessed by *v **i was a poetic fancy. The python in snaitb. i O ~- ca - Gardens was about 20ft me zook. ,- hed t etween three and foni . long, and wt>. • • n • i .' m , ■-~ "*n, in swallowing an animal, its mouth soon betook the head first,. The snake did __ t came as wide as a sack American said, eat his food, but as the ~», rp|j en jjg "put himself outside his dinne-, • . ,-, went to sleep, and a boa-constru « r i O A been said to have fasted for as long a pv

as thirteen months. One of the boa-con strictors in Paris, which wa;s not content with his rabbit, also bolted' his blanket but subsequently disgorged it and died. He had reason to believe that the large python in the Zoological Gardens could travel faster than a train going 25 miles an hour. Serpentß had no external ear nor any delicate internal organisation, such as is found in the head of other animals, so that it was a mistake to suppose that they could be moved by the concord of sweet sounds. When persons sew tho forked tongue of the snake, the remark was often made, " Look at its sting," but this tongue was harmless. Sir Joseph Eayrer has asserted his belief that in India 20,000 human beings and 50,000 animals were annually destroyed by snakes, but as statistics could not be obtained from all districts the number probably did not represent the total. If the natives would cast away their superstition the land could ■oon be cleared from these destructive reptiles. Mr Nicols exposed the impostures of | the Indian snake-charmers, and said that many Englishmen were expert in handling snakes, but on one occasion a superintendent of police had the tip of his finger just touched by a cobra, and he died in three hours. The charmers were in the habit of concealing trained snakes, which had been rendered harmless, about their bodies, and producing them by srealtli in a manner to make one believe he was dealing 1 with a strange snake. The poison of a snoJke-'was equally fatal even if diluted by Wafer; A fnll-£rrown cobra emitted from 6 to 1% drops of poison, and if a single drop entered the flesh nothing probably would save life. One-sixteenth of a grain of this poison would prove fatal to a dog of seventeen pounds weight. With regard to the " sea serpent," naturalists were agreed that no such monstrous serpent as had been represented was possible. Some of tbe moderate accounts described it as a quarter of a mile long, and others several miles ; and if the mouth was in the same proportion, this supposed beast ought to be able to swallow a whale comfortably. A long list of things might be given as having been mistaken for this reptile—wreckage, floating masses of seaweed, or a large congregation of birds. Although everything was being dono, up to the present no remedy for a poisonous snake-bite had been discovered. In reply to a question whether the flesh of snake was edible, Mr Nicols said it was good for food.—Lloyd's Weekly.