SNAKES AND SNAKECHARMING.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 176, 26 July 1881, Page 1

SNAKES AND SNAKECHARMING.

W-^W'WF - — At an evening lecture at the Working Men's College, Great Ormondstreet, Mr Arthur Nicols, F.G-.5., F.R. G.S., delivered a lecture on " Snakes and Snake-charming." He expressed the opinicm that the power of " fascination " supposed to he possessed by snakes was a poetic fancy. The py;hon in the Zoological Gardens was about 20ft long, and weighed between three and four cwt. The python, in swallowing an animal, took the head first, and its mouth soon became as wide as a sack. The snake did not eat his food, but as the American . said) "put himself outside his dinner." Then he went to sleep, and a boa-constrictor had been said to have fasted for as long a period as thirteen months. One of the boa-con-strictors in Paris, which was 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 (rain going 25 miles an hour. Serpents 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 saw the forked tongue of the snake, the remark was often made, ' Look at its sting," but this tongue was harmlessi Sir Joseph Fayrer 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 soon 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 stealth in a manner to make one believe he was dealing with a strange snake. The poison of a snake. was equally fatal even if diluted by water. A full-grown cobra emitted from 6 to 13 drops of poison • anxhif a single drop entered the flesh nothing probably woujd save life. Onesixteenth 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 the moderate accounts described it as a quarter of a mile long, and others several miles; and if tiie mouth was in the same proportion, this supposed beast onght to be abJe 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 j congregation of birds: Although everything was being done, 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.