home Vitamins and dietary supplements Coral adder (Micrurus). Family of aspid snakes, or asps. The most famous types of asps.

Coral adder (Micrurus). Family of aspid snakes, or asps. The most famous types of asps.

It is known that the Slavs gave many animals special, mystical qualities and endowed them with supernatural properties. This is the asp - one of the revered creatures of our ancestors.

A large family of venomous snakes. These include, for example, vipers, cobras, and the most dangerous snakes. But the imagination of the Slavs endowed them with many fantastic features. Asps in mythology are giant snakes with a bird's beak and two legs, horns, and spotted. He devours people and cattle, and he dies only from fire. They said that he himself spewed fire. Asp's scales are black, but shimmer very beautifully in the light.

The asp is a winged snake, has a bird's nose and two trunks, and in whatever land it is in charge, that land will be devastated.

In Russian legends, the asp is associated with such a character as the Serpent Gorynych. In other legends, Asp is a messenger of Chaos-Utgard, doing evil throughout the Earth.

The fact that Aspid is an extremely negative character in mythology is also evidenced by the fact that his very name in Russian has become a household name for a villain.

Asp in Slavic myths

The asp lives in mountainous areas, completely alone, often in a harsh cold climate, in thickets. The Asp cannot sit on the ground - the embodiment of the Mother - the Raw Earth - only on a stone.

In a number of legends, the image of Asp merges with the outlandish image of the Letavis - fiery snakes who seduce widows and maidens, pretending to be dead or absent lovers or husbands.

They say that a snake walks around at night, a flying one, of course. He will arrive, and she is waiting for him, thinking that it is her husband who has died.

These Asps come in different sizes, fly slowly, and resemble bright flashes.

Serpent-Gorynych is a later image of Aspid. It is endowed with numerous heads, most often three. Like Aspid, Gorynych in mythology lives on a sea cliff, a stone, perhaps hence his “patronymic name”. The heroes of Russian epics fight with such an Asp and defeat him. But ordinary weapons will not hit the snake. Even divine weapons are useless in the fight against him. A special approach is needed.

What legends were told about Aspid and the fight against him?

Once Aspid got into the habit of Rus', ravaged the land, killed all living things. It was impossible to hide from him. We turned to the Vedun. And he knew that the monster was afraid of the sound of trumpets, fire, and besides, he never sat on the ground - only on a stone. They forged pipes and iron tongs. The asp flew in, but when he heard the sound of trumpets, he got scared and flew at the soldiers, who hit him with iron pincers. The snake realized that they were not waiting for him on our land, and he never showed up again.

Aspid kidnapped three maiden Goddesses, and Dazhdbog himself rushed after them to help. God fought the monster one on one, the girls came out from under the serpent’s power. But the Serpent then stole three human girls and hid them in Navi. How many heroes tried to rescue the beauties! Nothing worked out for them. But the warriors were able to drive Asp out of the hole, beheaded him and burned him. The ashes turned into a whole mountain.

Another legend is about how Aspid blocked the earth’s waters, and the whole earth was threatened with drought. Having gathered together, people and Gods were able to destroy the monster. The water finally broke out of captivity and flowed like a stormy river, which was first called Agidel, and then Dvina.

Little is known about Asp in mythology. Heroic tales depict him as the embodiment of all the forces of evil: origin from Navi, bloodthirstiness, desire to destroy the human race, living in cold, remote places, fear of the cleansing elements of sound, fire and earth. All stories end with a victory over Aspid: temporary or permanent.

Studying Slavic mythology, you learn unusual stories and beliefs. One never tires of marveling at the imagination of our ancestors, at how organically they perceived the idea of animate nature.

Features and habitat of the asp snake

The name aspid unites the family poisonous snake. Translated from Greek, it is a poisonous snake. In nature, there are almost three hundred and sixty species of them. Over time, snakes living in the sea and ocean were also included in the group of aspids, because they are also very poisonous.

Now adder snakes are conventionally divided into those living in water and those living on land. The most common of them are cobras, which are water, shield, collared, arboreal, and royal.

Also snakes of the aspid family - decorated asp, African motley, false, Solomon's asp. Death snake, tiger snake, denison snake, krait snake, mamba snake and many others.

Outwardly, they are very different from each other, not at all similar to each other. A variety of bright and incredible colors, patterns, and sometimes one tone. With longitudinal and transverse patterns, spotted and ringed.

Their skin color depends entirely on the environment where they live. So that you can camouflage yourself well. Such as, coral adder, successfully camouflaged in stones made of multi-colored pebbles. Or White-lipped keffiyeh - Green colour, spends most of its time in trees, disguised as a leaf.

They also vary in size, from twenty-five centimeter to seven meter vipers. Their weight ranges from one hundred grams to one hundred kilograms. The body is elongated. In snake nature, females are larger than males, but the latter have longer tails.

Their bodies can be short and fat, or infinitely long and thin. As for the sea snake, its body is more flattened. Therefore, the organs within reptiles are also different. The snake has three hundred pairs of ribs.

They are very movably attached to the spine. And their head is in the shape of a triangle, the jaw ligaments are very elastic, which gives them the opportunity to swallow food much more larger in size than the reptile itself.

And one more interesting fact concerning internal organs. Their heart has the ability to move along the entire length of the snake, and almost all adders only have a right lung.

Snakes belong to the chordate phylum of animals, the reptile class, squamate order. Since they are cold-blooded animals, their life activity depends entirely on weather conditions, and in particular on air temperature. Therefore, in cold times, from late autumn to spring, they enter a state of sleep.

Adder snakes live in forests, steppes, fields, mountains and rocks, swamps and deserts, seas and oceans. They are lovers of hot climates. Their largest population is on the African and Asian continents, America and Australia, India and all tropical areas of our planet.

By its nature, a snake has no hearing, therefore, in order to exist and survive, in addition to its eyes, the snake actively uses the ability to catch vibration waves. Her invisible sensors located at the tip of her forked tongue serve as a thermal imager.

Having such abilities, without hearing, the snake receives full information about what surrounds her. Her eyes are constantly open, including during sleep. Because they are covered with fused scaly films.

Sami adder snakes are also covered with many scales, the number and size of which depend on the species to which they belong. Once every six months, the snake sheds its skin, completely shedding its already worn-out skin. Such pieces of leather can be seen very often in the forest.

When in their habitats, be extremely careful. Although scientific minds have come up with a vaccine, bite of poisonous snakes, asps, but it is not always possible to take advantage of it in time.

The poison of some of them acts fatally within five minutes, completely paralyzing the nervous system. Unknowing people have the mistaken opinion that if a snake has no teeth, it means it is not poisonous.

This is wrong. Looking at photo of asp snakes, Everyone has teeth, even if they are the smallest and almost invisible. So, if there are teeth, there is poison! The poison is located in a closed, poison-conducting channel.

And that, in turn, is placed on the head. This channel is tightly connected to the dental fangs, there are two of them, through which the poison enters. Moreover, one fang is not active, it serves as a replacement in case of loss of any of them.

And some types of asps, in addition to their deadly bite, also spit poisonous saliva. Like, for example, cobras do it. They spit out poison at the victim's eye level, completely blinding the enemy. At a distance of one and a half meters. And then they attack.

The character and lifestyle of the asp snake

By nature, most asps not aggressive. They do not attack humans or animals first. Except in cases where people themselves do not step on them without noticing them in the grass.

In areas where snakes live, they are often seen near human houses. They crawl there in search of food. Therefore, over the years, local residents have learned to coexist with them.

Their wardrobe included clothes made of very dense fabric that the snake could not bite through. Also, high rubber boots also help people move freely without fear of snake bites.

Plowmen, before going to work, plowing the fields, send pigs ahead of them. After all, this is the only animal that does not mind a poisonous bite. And then they themselves go boldly to work on the land.

There are a few snakes that, no matter what, attack their prey, and out of anger, if they fail to bite the first time, they will pursue it in pursuit. The snake reaches speeds of more than ten kilometers per hour if it needs to catch up with someone or run away.

Because snakes of the aspid family They almost always hunt during the day, with the exception of particularly hot days, when the reptile crawls out of its hole only on a cool night. Cases of collisions between snakes and humans are quite common.

Aspid snake nutrition

Some types slate snake such as cobras, eat their own kind, including. Small rodents, toads, the bats, chicks that have fallen out of their nests, this is their main diet. It is a false belief that snakes drink milk.

Absolute lie. Snakes do not digest lactose at all. Almost all snakes, when hunting their prey, pierce it with their teeth and then swallow it. Unlike the Austrian death snake. She hides, and cunningly, with the end of her tail, as if imitating an insect. The deceived animal approaches trustingly, and the snake immediately attacks.

On average, preying on one mouse, rat or chick will be enough for a snake. But if the situation is favorable, and there is an opportunity to eat something else, the reptile will never refuse. She is not familiar with the feeling of overeating.

The snake will stock up in advance, then for several days, or even a week, food will be digested in its stomach. But sea snakes will happily feast on fish and even small-sized squid.

Reproduction and life expectancy of the asp snake

Puberty in snakes begins a year after birth. Some are only sexually active by the age of two. Like all animals, before they begin to mate, the males win the lady of their heart and duel with each other.

This happens in the spring. Having won the tournament, the male pursues the female and flirts with her. Some of his head movements look quite cute, as if he is hugging her.

The expectant mother carries her offspring for a little more than two months. Oviparous adders lay ten to five ten eggs. And there are some that lay eggs several times a year

The aspid family is divided into oviparous and viviparous snakes . Only a few are viviparous , for example like , African cobra. She can give birth to more than forty children .

Twenty snakes of the asp family live , thirty years . No matter how dangerous snakes may seem to us, it is better not to destroy them. Do not disturb the population of creeping creatures in nature. We have already confirmed their necessity.

Today we will talk about the most dangerous snakes in the World

Snakes are one of the most mysterious and complex creatures on earth; some consider them incredibly beautiful and dangerous, others consider them vile, scary, disgusting useless animals. The serpent, according to biblical legends, was the wisest animal before the fall of man, after which it began to crawl on its belly and eat dust. Snakes perform mainly sanitary functions by eating rodents, but many of them are poisonous to humans.

“More than 2,500 species of snakes live on our planet. They can be found everywhere except Antarctica and a few islands, such as New Zealand and Ireland, and they are also not found on the small islands of the Atlantic and Pacific (its central part) oceans. However, among all the snake diversity, only 10% are poisonous."

Of the more than 2,500 species of snakes, 410 are venomous.“They differ from each other not only in structure and way of life, but also chemical composition poison, its effect on a living organism. Official statistics state that up to 50,000 people die from snakebites every year.”

The most actively populated by dangerous snakes are countries, regions, continents, where tropics, heat, mountains, and jungles abound. For example, in the vicinity of Brazil there is an island called “Snake”.

“Snake Island (located off the coast of Brazil)

The most dangerous poisonous snakes on the continent are found here. For example, spearheads - one bite from a snake of this species leads to instant tissue death and death.

According to statistics, the number of poisonous snakes ranges from 1 to 5 individuals per square meter area of Zmeiny Island. Therefore, visiting the island is officially prohibited. But still, every year there are extreme sportsmen...”

There are only a few species of venomous snakes found in Russia, mainly in the North Caucasus. In the rest of Russia you can find vipers and copperheads. Their bites are usually non-fatal, but there are rare fatal cases. In general, death from a viper bite occurs about as often as from a hornet bite, and mostly not from poison, but from anaphylactic shock.

In the North Caucasus you can find such poisonous snakes as the copperhead (three species), the viper (six species), the viper, and the tiger snake.

Pictured: Cottonmouth

Viper in the photo

In the photo is Gyurza

“The viper is a representative of the genus of giant vipers and is capable of reaching a length of two meters, it is the most major representative a kind of viper. For humans, such a snake is the most dangerous.

In terms of its toxicity, the venom of the viper is perhaps second only to that of the cobra, while during defense, the snake is able to jump the length of its own body towards the enemy.

The bite of such a snake is accompanied by severe pain, vomiting and dizziness; just one such bite contains up to 50 milligrams of poison. If help is not provided on time, then within two to three hours the person will die.”

In addition to infecting the victim with venom, snakes are capable of killing and harming the victim in other ways.

For example, in the tropical rivers of South America and Brazil, the anaconda is found, we have seen it in horror films and in videos with wildlife, where a snake swallows animals alive by a crocodile.

This is the largest snake of known modern snakes, even the weight of females can reach 100 kg, length 5-6 meters.

In the photo there is an anaconda

Contrary to the horrors described and shown, the anaconda rarely attacks a person, however, cases of attack and murder of people have still been recorded.

Boas, for example, squeeze the victim, tying it with rings and squeezing the chest or throat.

There are a lot of snakes that infect the victim directly with poison; let’s look at the most dangerous of them.

The first places are shared by the fierce snake, taipan, tiger snake, and sand epha.

I’ll tell you right away about the most beautiful of them:

“The spectacled snake, or Indian cobra (lat. Naja naja) is a very beautiful motley snake, growing up to 1.5-2 meters in length. Lives in India Central Asia, Southern China (to the Philippines and the islands of the Malay Archipelago).

The photo shows a spectacled snake

The offspring of this cobra are poisonous from the very first minutes after birth. The venom of the spectacled cobra contains toxins that cause damage to the central nervous system. Just one gram of poison can kill 140 medium-sized dogs.”

Pictured is a Malayan krait

“The Malayan krait (lat. Bungarus candidus) is a very dangerous snake from the adder family. Extremely unfriendly. It lives in Australia, South Asia and the islands of the Malay Archipelago.

Its poison is fatal and primarily affects the human brain. Death can occur quickly and even without paralytic symptoms.”

I must say, in general, asps are all beautiful, from the outside... Asps are a large family of poisonous snakes, which includes 347 species, grouped into 61 genera, including mambas and cobras.

“In general, neurotoxins predominate in the venom of slate snakes, which gives a characteristic clinical picture when bitten. Local phenomena in the area of the bite almost do not develop (there is no swelling or redness), but death quickly occurs due to oppression nervous system, primarily paralysis of the respiratory center. The bite of large adders, such as cobras, poses a mortal danger to humans.”

In the photo there is a harlequin adder

“The harlequin, or eastern adder (lat. Micrurus fulvius) is a poisonous snake that lives in northeastern Mexico and the southeastern part of the United States. The owner of a bright color with characteristic red, black and narrow yellow rings.

The bite of this snake is very dangerous for human life. If help is not provided in time, a person can die within 20-24 hours.”

Adders also include the most poisonous land snake - the cruel snake (although a number of scientists, according to recent studies, call the tiger snake and others the taipan the most dangerous).

The photo shows a cruel snake

“On average, 44 mg of venom is obtained from one snake - this dose is enough to kill 100 people or 250,000 mice. With a semi-lethal dose of 0.01 mg/kg, its venom is approximately 180 times stronger than that of a cobra. However, unlike coastal taipan, a fierce snake is less aggressive; all documented cases of bites were the result of careless handling” (Wikipedia).

The taipan is perhaps not as beautiful as the harlequin adder, but more dangerous; it is one of the most dangerous and aggressive snakes in the world; every second person bitten dies, despite the use of the serum:

“The coastal taipan or simply Taipan (lat. Oxyuranus scutellatus) is one of the most poisonous snakes in the world.

Pictured is a taipan.

The taipan is very aggressive and fast: when it sees danger, it raises its head, shaking it, then strikes the enemy several times in a row with lightning speed. A taipan bite can lead to death in 4-12 hours, while a person bitten by other most poisonous snakes lives for about a day.

In Queensland, where taipans are most common, despite the invention of the serum, every second bitten person still dies.

Because of his aggressive disposition", large size and speed, the taipan is considered the most dangerous of all poisonous snakes in the world, although the strength of its poison is somewhat weaker than that of the desert taipan, a cruel snake."

Mulga in the photo

Mulga or brown king (lat. Pseudechis australis) is a dangerous snake from the adder family. In terms of toxicity, its venom is second only to that of the taipan and tiger snake, but this is successfully compensated for by its large quantity: at one time the mulga is capable of releasing up to 150 mg of venom. Moreover, this snake is in no hurry to immediately release the victim, but holds it with its long teeth, injecting new portions of poison.

The black mamba (also a snake) is common in Africa, one of the fastest snakes, reaching speeds of over 11 km per hour (yes, that's fast for a snake).

Pictured is a black mamba

“The snake has the sad reputation of being extremely dangerous, the bite of which, before the advent of antidotes, invariably led to death. However, it is not aggressive and avoids human contact whenever possible, only attacking when caught off guard or cornered.

The poison is highly toxic and contains neurotoxins, primarily dendrotoxins, which, in the absence of an antidote, lead to paralysis and respiratory arrest. There are known cases where death occurred within 45 minutes after the bite.”

“Adult specimens reach a length of 2.5 meters, although there are cases of sad encounters with mambas of 4 meters in length. The black mamba owes its name not to the color of its body (it varies), but to the inky color of its mouth.

This reptile is very fast, reaching speeds of up to 20 km/h. After the first “tip”, the mamba tries to sting several more times, and if the poisonous tooth gets into a vein, all is lost. Mambas often love garbage dumps in African villages, which makes ordinary garbage disposal a very extreme activity.”

This is one of the 20 most dangerous snakes on the planet. A dose of 15-29 mg is enough to kill an adult, but the black mamba injects 100-400 mg of poison at a time.

If a person is bitten on a limb, a person has a couple of hours; with timely assistance (injection of serum into the blood), there is a 99% chance of recovery; if the bite is in the face, there is only 20-30 minutes.

The photo shows a green mamba

The green mamba is an insidious snake, it is also nicknamed the “green devil”. Its color is very beautiful, from light green to bright green, the length of an adult is about 1.5 m. There are fewer cases of death from green mamba bites than from black mamba bites, but the green mamba attacks very unexpectedly, on its own, without visible reasons, there were cases when she was waiting for people on tree branches while harvesting tea plantations and fell by the collar from above, inflicting a fatal blow. It happened that a person’s death occurred in a couple of minutes, not that they didn’t have time to administer the serum - they didn’t have time to understand what happened.

Death snakes are also a subspecies of adders.

The photo shows a deadly snake

« Deadly snakes (lat. Acanthophis) are a genus of Australian very poisonous snakes, consisting of 3-5 species. They are among the most poisonous snakes on the planet. The name is translated from Greek as “thorny snake.”

The venom of deadly snakes is extremely toxic - enough venom can be obtained from one snake to kill 2,285 mice. When bitten, a deadly snake injects 70-100 mg of venom (LD50 for mice 0.4-0.5 mg/kg). The venom is almost exclusively neurotoxic and is 1.5 times stronger than the venom of the cobra (Naja naja).

Unlike most Australian adder bites, symptoms of poisoning develop slowly, peaking 24-48 hours after the bite. However, before the development of a special serum, half of the recorded cases died from bites of these snakes. The deadly snake Acanthophis antarcticus is the 10th most venomous land snake in the world.”

There is a common misconception that the most poisonous and dangerous snake is the cobra, in particular the king cobra. This is wrong.

“King cobra venom is primarily neurotoxic. The venom toxin blocks muscle contractions, which causes paralysis of the respiratory muscles, respiratory arrest and death. Its strength and volume (up to 7 ml) are enough to cause the death of a person within 15 minutes after the first full bite. In such cases, the probability of death may exceed 75%.

But, taking into account all the behavioral features of the king cobra, in general, only 10% of bites become fatal to humans. In India, deaths from king cobra bites are rare, despite the fact that up to 50 thousand people die from poisonous snake bites in the country every year.

Pictured is a king cobra

The king cobra is a very patient snake. If a person finds himself at close range with this snake, he should stand (or sit) at the level of its eyes, do not make sudden movements, breathe evenly and look at it calmly. After a few minutes, the cobra will consider the person a harmless object and slip away.”

The sand epha, which usually has a body length of only 70-80 cm, is found in the foothills and valleys Central Asia, throughout northern Africa to Algeria.

In the photo there is a sand faff

“If an efa bites, then the person is doomed, even if he survives, he will remain crippled forever. In Africa he dies from its poison more people than from everyone African snakes combined.

Lives in lumpy sands overgrown with saxaul, in clay deserts, thickets of bushes, on river cliffs and in ruins. In favorable conditions, efa can be very numerous. For example, in the valley of the Murghab River, over an area of about 1.5 km, snake catchers produced more than 2 thousand eff in 5 years.”

“The mortality rate for poisoning with epha poisons is about 20%. The use of serum reduces it to 2.5%. According to David Worrell, the ephas is responsible for the largest number of deaths of any snake. Death from an ephas bite occurs at a “record” rate late dates: within 3-41 days."

The most poisonous snake living in the sea (according to some sources, the most poisonous in general) is Belchera; a drop of venom from one snake can kill a thousand people (for comparison, the venom of a tiger snake can kill 400 people, a cruel one - 100). True, the Belchera is peaceful and attacks only in extreme cases; death occurs within 1 minute.

Belcher's photo

There is a lot of debate among biologists and specialists about which snake is the most poisonous - some call the Belchera the most potentially poisonous, some say the efu, some say the taipan, a cruel snake.

Result:

“It is definitely difficult to answer which poisonous snake out of all their diversity is the most dangerous to humans. Why? Because not only the toxicity of the poison matters, but also the aggressiveness of the snake, the method of attack, the amount of poison injected during the bite, and the location of the teeth.

Putting all the factors together, scientists have identified the most dangerous snake on the planet - the sand epha for the following reasons:

it has killed more people than all other poisonous snakes combined;
every 5th person bitten dies even today, in the age of high medical technologies;
If a person still survives, then he will have health problems for the rest of his life. Most often, the consequences of a sand ephas bite have a detrimental effect on the kidneys and liver.”

All snakes are cold-blooded, their body temperature is the same as environment, they are unable to maintain body heat. “Cold, sometimes warm, sticky, slippery” - this is how those who had contact with them characterize the reptiles.

But the main thing is that snakes are always predators, and if some of them are not dangerous to people, they are dangerous to rodents.

Family of aspid snakes, or asps

In the first family of aspidae we associate snakes with an elongated body, a small head, a valval body, and a moderately pointed body at the end. It is rounded or appears bluntly triangular in cross-section due to the protruding ridge on the back. The nostrils open on the sides at the rounded end of the muzzle: bridle shields are always absent; the head is covered with large shields; the remaining body scales are quite varied. Small eyes with a round pupil, only in a few species an ovoid and vertical pupil. The structure of teeth varies greatly different types: coral and decorated asps, as well as ferruginous snakes, have no teeth at all in the upper jaw except poisonous ones, the rest have behind poisonous tooth there is an even shorter or longer row of small, non-sulcated maxillary teeth.
One of the most important distinguishing features of this family is the absence of a bridle shield; it is very likely that this absence has some connection with the poisonous tooth located directly under this place. Perhaps the absence of this shield, and, consequently, the smaller number and less loose connection of the shields lying between the nostrils and the eyes, is explained by the need to give this tooth a firmer, less mobile position. True, there are quite a few harmless snakes from other families that also do not have a bridle. However, at least this is a warning sign that tells us that we should not grab with our hands those snakes that do not have a bridle. Complete confidence in whether we are dealing with a poisonous or harmless snake can only be given to us, as we explained earlier, only by an accurate examination of their teeth.
This family is distributed throughout the world, reaches great diversity in the Eastern Hemisphere, includes all the numerous venomous snakes found in Australia, but, fortunately, has no representatives in Europe. It contains almost half of all known venomous snakes, including some the most dangerous. Almost all species belonging to it live on the ground, however, some are also capable of climbing trees, but, apparently, they do this only in exceptional cases. All hunt small vertebrates, especially harmless snakes, but also lizards. Larger ones ambush prey, but sometimes chase it a short distance, bite it and leave it for dead. Smaller ones, apparently, find food, grab it and poison it only when swallowing. We still have only scant information about their reproduction, from which it follows that aspid snakes lay eggs before the embryos in them have fully developed.
In general, venomous snakes may be inferior to non-venomous ones in the beauty of color, but some can compete with them in this regard; perhaps not even a single snake, or even a single reptile, surpasses in beauty the flowers of the adders, which live in the warmer parts of America, and a few species in southern Africa. These are small, but elongated, somewhat clumsy snakes with a wavy body, a flat head, barely separated from the neck, and a short tail. Small eyes have a round pupil. Adders are dressed with uniform, smooth scales arranged in 15 rows, rounded ventral scutes, a simple anal scute and caudal scutes arranged in pairs. The mouth opening is very small, and the jaws stretch only slightly, due to the short tympanic and mastoid bones.
Behind the drilled poisonous hooked teeth they do not have solid teeth. Concerning the former, there was doubt for a long time, since some of the best naturalists, among other things, Prince von Wied, despite careful research, could not discover either drilled or grooved teeth, while they were found in other species of the same genus. Therefore, Prince von Wied considered those adders that he observed to be harmless snakes and also rejected the poisonousness of the others. “Even if,” he says, “their drilled teeth contained poison, then even in this case there would be very little reason to be afraid of these animals, since given their small size and the insignificance of the mouth, they could bite only very small animals and could not be dangerous to humans. Asps, of which I carried many with me without the slightest harm, are apparently related in shape and structure to two-mouthed snakes: a flat head rounded in front, small eyes, long teeth standing singly in the front upper jaw, a small, barely opening mouth, an inextensible occiput - these characteristics are quite consistent with each other in both groups.What they lack, thanks to the structure of the jaws, is, apparently, compensated by the length of large canines, which, however, can be used only against very small animals." The latest researchers, although they do not rank asps among the most dangerous poisonous snakes, nevertheless agree among themselves that the venom of these snakes is as effective as the venom of other snakes of the same size, armed with grooved or drilled teeth.
One of the most magnificent views - common coral adder(Micrurus corallipus), a snake with a length of 60 to 70 cm, of which the tail occupies about 10 cm. “The main color of the entire animal,” says Prince von Wied, “is a magnificent cinnabar red with an unusually bright, somewhat more matte sheen on the belly. This the beautiful red color is interrupted on the body by 16-19 black rings, about 10-44 mm wide, surrounding the body and located quite regularly, at equal intervals; on the anterior and posterior edges, each ring is very sharply separated from the red color by a narrow greenish-white ring. All red and greenish-white rings are dotted with black dots, since each of their scales has a black tip. The anterior half of the head to the posterior end of the frontal shield is bluish-black, on both occipital shields a wide greenish-white transverse stripe begins, which behind the eye goes down and occupies the entire lower jaw; behind it there is a black collar or first black ring, followed by a red one. The tail is usually not red, but has about 8 whitish rings on a black background and a short white tip. This coloration appears to be very permanent."
The coral adder lives, as Prince von Wied points out, in the large forests and bushes around Rio de Janeiro, Cabo Frio and Parahiba, but is found both in the West Indies and Argentina, and in the west in Ecuador, Bolivia and the low lying areas of northeastern Peru. In completely open places it is noticed less often, although sometimes it is also found here and even near dwellings. It apparently does not live in swamps and rather prefers sandy soil or cool, moist forest soil, where plants and fallen rotting leaves provide shelter to all other localities.
“The hunter,” continues our author, “who steps onto this forest floor covered with plants, stops with amazement and pleasure when he sees the bright red rings of this magnificent snake in the greenery, and only the uncertainty of whether this animal is dangerous or harmless stops his desire to reach out for this beautiful creature; however, we soon became convinced that it was not at all dangerous to take these animals and carry them alive in our pockets. I have often found the coral adder during my hunting excursions, but more often in warm time year than in cold weather. He doesn't belong to fast snakes and you can soon catch up with him; it also cannot climb trees, like many of its relatives in the primeval forests of Brazil. Its food consists of small vertebrates: its narrow mouth and throat do not allow it to swallow larger ones. I did not notice any particular odor in these snakes during mating, but I often found their bodies filled with eggs.
Brazilians usually tell a stranger a lot about these beautiful animals, since the wonderful brilliance of the colors of these snakes impresses them too; but they consider them, like most snakes, to be poisonous; many even think that the coral adder carries in its neck another small snake that bites." We now know that both observations have a known factual basis. The people who expressed this opinion were right that the coral adder is poisonous, and Prince von Wied was wrong; we must agree with the second remark, since it feeds on snakes, two-year-olds and skinks and other small reptiles and could often be observed while swallowing prey.
In Asia, the snakes just described are being replaced decorated asps(Callophis). They are distinguished by a groove along the entire anterior side of the maxillary teeth, the presence of posterior frontal bones and the number of rows of scales, which is 13 for them, and 15 for asps. The rounded body is very long and thin, the head, barely separated from the neck, is blunt, the tail is very short, wide nostrils lie between two scutes, the eye with a round pupil is small and surrounded by 0-1 preorbital and 1-2 postorbital scutes. The scutes of the head are regular, although the bridle scute is missing, the temporal scutes are located in one longitudinal row, the upper lips are covered with 6-8 scutes, the body scales are smooth and slightly overlap each other, covering the middle of the back are not enlarged. The structure of the poisonous glands does not deviate at all from their structure in the previous genus. Distributed throughout the East Indies, southern China and southern Japan.
One of the most common and widespread types, McClelland's decorated asp(Callophis macclellandi), a snake, 62 cm long, of which the tail takes up about one-eleventh. The number of labial scutes is 7, the number of preorbital scutes is 1, the number of postorbital scutes is 2; two temporal ones stand one behind the other. The color varies quite significantly. Usually the upper side of this beautiful snake is reddish-brown and decorated with approximately 40 regularly spaced, black and white-edged transverse stripes or full rings; the yellow belly has black transverse stripes or square spots.
One variety from Nepal has a black line on the back, and its black transverse stripes are replaced by transverse spots or may disappear altogether.
It is known from Nepal, Sikkim, Assam, Burma and southern China.
In the second Asian genus, extremely closely related to the previous one, ferruginous snakes(Maticora), the structure of the poisonous glands deserves special attention, which, as Meyer found, reach a size that is not found in other snakes.

These glands occupy a third of the length of the body on each side, extend even into the body cavity and have a noticeable effect on the position of the remaining internal organs, for example, they push the heart back. What is especially striking is the fact that such large glands are found in some snakes, which in all other respects are similar to those in which they reach only an ordinary size. According to Boulanger, one can be convinced of the existence of these large poisonous glands without opening the snake, but only by feeling it; one can even notice their existence with the eye, by a slight elevation at the beginning of the second third of the body, where the heart lies. There are two known species living in Southeast Asia.
The most common species of this genus common ferruginous snake(Maticora intestinalis) is found in Burma, on the Malacca Peninsula and on all the islands from Sumatra to the Philippines. Its length is 57 cm, of which about 1/13 is the tail. The number of upper labial scutes is 6; there is a single temporal scute in front and two temporal scutes lying one above the other in the back. Specimens from Java have, on a red-brown background, a red dorsal stripe bordered in black, and on each side a yellow lateral stripe, also bordered in black. The dorsal stripe divides at the posterior edge of the parietal shield into two branches that stretch towards the nostrils. The entire underside is covered with alternating wide black and yellow half-rings, the anal shield is black, the underside of the tail is yellow with or without transverse stripes.
Decorated adders and ferruginous snakes, which are highly similar to each other, are especially common in India, at least they are found here in greater numbers than on the large neighboring islands. In their way of life they are remarkably similar to dwarf snakes; they not only live in the same areas, but are also closely connected with them in that they mainly, if not exclusively, feed on them. Both groups have exactly the same area of distribution, and these venomous snakes are so dependent on their prey that they are not found where there is no prey, such as in Ceylon. If we can make a conclusion about the relative number of representatives of both groups in the wild, based on the number of specimens that fall into our collections, then we can, according to Gunter, say that the species of dwarf snakes are found in approximately twice as many numbers as the ornamented adders living in the same areas and ferruginous snakes. According to Kantor's observations, these venomous snakes are not particularly common, but they are also not rare. These are earth snakes in the fullest sense of the word, which seek refuge under tree roots, stones and in rock cracks, seem very sluggish and awkwardly move their long, thin body, and are usually found lying on the ground without movement with a variously curved, but not curled body. Although they should be considered diurnal snakes, their vision, corresponding to the extremely small round pupil, is apparently as weak as their hearing; at least you can get close to them without causing any movement on their part that would express fear. If you touch them with a stick, they make great efforts to escape, but soon stop again, and if you continue to pursue them, they move in an extremely irregular, convulsive manner, but never try to bite. Only once did Kantor see one of these snakes raise its head about 4 cm above the ground. In captivity they take neither food nor water and soon die. Kantor examined the stomachs of these snakes many times, and only once found the remains of a small snake that he could not identify. On the contrary, Schlegel found dwarf glandular snakes in the stomachs, which could still be identified.
It is only thanks to their narrow mouth that these snakes turn out to be harmless; the effect of their venom is relatively as strong as the effect of the venom of other representatives of the same family, and glandular snakes, in which the poisonous gland reaches such an extraordinary development, could, despite very small poisonous teeth, inflict extremely dangerous bites. But the rest can kill a larger animal. After various unsuccessful attempts to tease the beautiful adders and induce them to bite, Kantor stuck the poisonous teeth of one of them into a raised fold of skin on the leg of a chicken, but was not sure, due to the narrow mouth of the snake and the difficulty of performing this experiment, whether the poisonous teeth penetrated the skin. Therefore, after a quarter of an hour, the snake was forced to bite the chicken under the right eye in the same way. After 20 minutes, the latter discovered the first signs of poisoning, defecated, raised her wounded leg with visible pain and pressed it to her body. 28 minutes after the first bite, which left barely visible wounds, the bird collapsed and tried several times in vain to rise; 10 minutes later, convulsions began, the pupil shrank, the effects of poisoning continued, and after an hour death occurred. Other chickens that were bitten by ornate adders died with the same signs of poisoning after 80 minutes to 3 hours. But all the snakes that were used for these experiments died soon after as a result of the violence inflicted on them.
By the name bungar or bungarum the Indians mean the large and extremely dangerous poisonous snakes of their homeland. This name has been changed to Latin bungaroos(Bungarus) and accepted by science. Currently, this is the name of a genus that includes 8 species* of snakes of the East Indies and southern China, which are united by the following characteristics: the head is barely wider than the neck, small, ovoid, with a short and blunt muzzle; the neck is not capable of expanding or inflating, the body is round or bluntly triangular, almost equal in thickness to the tail, the tail itself is relatively short.

* This genus currently includes 13 species.

Large scutes cover the head, smooth scales arranged in oblique transverse and 13-15 longitudinal rows cover the body, wider, hexagonal scute-like scales form a prominent ridge on the back, and single- or double-row scutes cover the underside of the tail. The mouth opening is small, the lower jaw is somewhat shorter than the upper and there are fewer teeth in it. From one to three small solid teeth stand behind the hooked poisonous teeth, which have a distinct groove on the front bent side, but are very small in relation to the size of the animal and protrude only slightly from the fold of the gum.
Tape krait(Bungarus fasciatus), or pama, the largest species of this genus, reaches a length of 1.75 m and is covered with yellow rings on a black or black-blue background; the head is black and blue, the muzzle is brown, the stripe that begins in the middle of the occipital shield and runs along both sides in the form of a collar back and down is yellow; the rest of the body is covered with 25-35 black, blue and yellow rings of approximately the same width and almost equal distances from each other. In addition to the strongly expanded ventral scutes and single-row caudal scutes, which are also characteristic of the next species, the ribbon krait is distinguished by a distinct keel on the back and a remarkably bluntly rounded end of the tail.
The ribbon krait is distributed throughout the East Indies, Indochina and neighboring islands; it was found throughout the East Indies, Assam, Burma, Siam, southern China and Java and Sumatra. The species chooses, according to Kantor, dry areas to live and hunts here for small mammals and reptiles, especially other snakes and lizards. Within her area, she chooses a shelter for herself, either burrows in the ground, or a place under the roots of a tree, and hunts nearby. In a populated country they are rarely seen, but they also sneak into the huts of the natives.

Kantor says that despite their round pupils, snakes often hide in their shelters during the day, avoid the sun, seek shadows and move slowly, and sometimes quickly for no apparent reason. On the contrary, Fairer calls them diurnal animals. If they are not irritated, then when a person approaches, they always take flight, but if they are teased, they immediately become furious and in this state can be as dangerous as any other poisonous snake of the same size. If you beat them or even attack them, they show strong anger, try to leave their shelter, and their usual slowness suddenly gives way to great mobility. When attacked, they, like vipers, move their heads far back and then throw half of their body forward in an oblique direction and try to sink their teeth into their enemy. The Indians claim that their bites are fatal and there is no escape from them, so they are very afraid of them, especially the very common Indian krait, or blue bungarus. However, due to the fact that their poisonous teeth are short, the bitten person still has some hope of saving life, unlike cases of spectacled snake bites.
Experiments carried out by Roussel, Fayrer and others sufficiently prove the danger of bungarus bites. The chicken, bitten by a very weakened ribbon edge, immediately lay down, she developed severe diarrhea, and she could no longer stand upright. For the first 10 minutes, she tried in vain to get up, her head was shaking; 5 minutes later she lay and, apparently, was dying, but death occurred only after 25 minutes and was accompanied by twitching of all members. A large, strong dog, bitten on the thigh by a blue bungarus, screamed loudly at the same instant, although the wound inflicted on it was barely visible, but continued to run, apparently without difficulty; 10 minutes later she began to twitch the wounded limb and raised it up, but could still stand; after 5 minutes she lay down and began to bark, but still stood up, although the movement of the hip seemed noticeably weakened; 25 minutes after the bite, both hind legs were already paralyzed. During the second hour she vomited several times, her paralysis worsened; the dog lay down on its side, began to breathe heavily and died by the end of that hour. There was barely any swelling or pallor visible on the bitten limb. The bitch bitten in the groin died with the same symptoms within an hour, but with strong twitching. The chicken, bitten on the wing by the same snake, immediately fell into an unconscious state, but could still walk for 10 minutes; after 15 minutes she lay down and seemed to fall asleep, turned her head first one way or the other, several times made fruitless movements or efforts to get up, began to twitch and died an hour later.
Fairer's very numerous, but insufficiently detailed experiments are in significant agreement with Roussel's experiments. After 23 minutes, the bitten dogs began to breathe quickly and anxiously, after three quarters of an hour they vomited, became very restless, lethargic, drowsy, indifferent, finally, convulsions began, and they died after 54-55 minutes. After being bitten, the cats opened their mouths, stuck out their tongues far, tried to run away, then calmly lay down and died after about the same time. Herons, bitten in the shin, already after 3 minutes stretched their wounded leg, breathed quickly, and attempted to fly. 6 minutes after the bite, they showed the first signs of weakness: they opened their beaks wide and ruffled their feathers. After 20 minutes they lay down, their fingers cramped convulsively, they made trembling movements with their skin, after an hour they could no longer move; an hour and a half after the bite, the herons were dead. On examination, the bitten shin turned out to be very swollen and filled with gases to such an extent that when pressure was applied they moved noisily; the blood was watery and thin, which is usually observed when examining the blood of animals or people who have died from the bites of poisonous snakes. Even 2 minutes after the bites, the chickens were very excited and ran around anxiously, 8 minutes after that they began to stagger, so they had to support themselves by resting their beaks on the ground; 5 minutes after that they fell paralyzed, after another 15 minutes they began to twitch and after 26 minutes, some as early as 17 minutes, and at the latest an hour and a half after the bite, they died. The bitten young cat was ill for 3 days, but remained alive, probably because not enough poison was injected into the wound. Similar circumstances sometimes occur in cases where bitten people do not die from poisoning. “If,” says Fairer, “any means had been used to save the cat, they would probably have been credited with a beneficial effect, and perhaps unjustifiably.” Richards also speaks in the same sense, pointing to a number of cases that had a similar outcome.
From all these experiments, a complete listing of which would tire readers and yet would not give anything new, it follows that the venom of the bungarus does not act as quickly or strongly as the venom of the spectacled snake, but probably only due to the shortness of the poisonous teeth, which cannot penetrate so deep. Poisoning caused by the bites of these snakes is always dangerous, and the worst outcomes can occur even if the poisonous teeth only scratch the skin.
Bungarusa bitten by spectacled snakes died the next day; others remained alive. Fairer is inclined to attribute the death of the first to the bites of larger spectacled snakes, and, according to my observations, he has every right to do so.
How many of the large number of accidents caused by the bites of poisonous snakes that occur annually in India are to be attributed to the bungarus is difficult to decide; but we would probably not do them injustice if we ranked them first after the spectacled snake as the most dangerous of the venomous snakes of the East Indies. The relatively insignificant size and not at all conspicuous shape of the head, as well as their generally harmless appearance, as well as, perhaps, the magnificent colors and patterns of bungarus can mislead another ignorant person, and their daily lifestyle and large number often lead them to collision with a person than other venomous snakes of the same size. “The rule relating to Europe,” says Marten, “that poisonous snakes can be recognized by a wide head, clearly separated from the neck, is not true for southern Asia. A Dutch officer in Ambarawa, shortly before our arrival in Java, had to pay with his life for insufficient knowledge of zoology ", since he considered the bungarus harmless on the basis of the small size of its head. Since the front and rear ends of these snakes at first glance are not very different, the people consider them two-headed and warn against two-headed snakes as especially dangerous."
The validity of such a warning, although it is based on a false opinion, is confirmed by Fairer's data regarding the East Indian bungarus. In reports reaching government places, bungaroos, and especially blue ones, rank second. Bites from the ribbon krait are mentioned remarkably rarely; on the contrary, bites or deaths from the blue bungarus are extremely common, and all reports of police officials cite an appalling number of accidents caused by this relatively small poisonous snake. It is common throughout India, more often than any other snake, it crosses the path of a traveler, penetrates not only into open huts, but even into locked houses, curling up on the threshold of the door, in the corner of the room, in the closet and in the chest, slips into the bedrooms and bathrooms etc. due to this, it is very often the cause of death of people.
“Cobra de Capello” was the name given by the Portuguese to one snake that they found in Ceylon, and later they transferred this name to its relatives that they met in Africa. The name means “hat snake” and it is characteristic; however, the Portuguese might not have created a new name, since both snakes had been known and named since time immemorial; especially the species living in northern and eastern Africa gained great fame already in the history of ancient Egypt. The peculiarity of these snakes is that they can, by vertically raising the front part of the body, expand their neck in the form of a flat circle, directing the front eight ribs to the sides. In this position, they always hold their head horizontally, and then it seems as if they are wearing a large round hat, but only if you look at them from behind. When viewed from the front, the flat circle formed by the ribs evokes a comparison with a shield, and therefore the name “shield snake” (“Schildotter”) would be even more characteristic.
Body real cobras(Naja) elongated and rounded, somewhat thickened in the middle, flat below; the neck, capable of significant expansion, is somewhat separated from the head at rest; the head itself is small, oblong-ovoid, rather flat, in general, very similar to the head of real snakes; the tail is elongated, conical and pointed; the eyes are quite small and have a round pupil; the nostrils are wide and lie on the sides, each between two scutes. The cover of the head consists of large, regular scutes. There are no bridle shields; preocular 1-2, postocular 3, sometimes 2 or 4; the upper lip is covered with 6-7 scutes, of which the third and fourth are mostly part of the ring surrounding the eye. The rest of the cover consists of obliquely arranged, smooth, smaller scales on the neck and similarly arranged larger rhombic ones on the upper side of the rest of the body, while the ventral side is covered with large single-rowed scutes, and the underside of the tail is single-rowed and divided into pairs. The mouth opening is relatively wide; behind the clearly grooved poisonous teeth of medium length there are 1-3 smooth solid teeth.
There are 6 or 7 species, which are distributed throughout Africa and southern Asia*. All lay eggs, live on the ground, but often climb trees and voluntarily go into the water.

* Since the time of Brem, the family has doubled in size.

Anyone who has ever seen a real cobra when, frightened and irritated by the sight of an enemy, especially a man, it rose up, extended the front third of its body upward, extended its shield and in this majestic pose, ready to attack, or at least to defend, sometimes more slowly, sometimes faster, it crawls, writhing, towards the object of its anger, with its front part holding motionless, like a statue, and the back straining every muscle, and who knows at the same time that its bite is as deadly as the bite of a keffiyeh or a cascavella , he will understand that it should have long aroused the attention of man, he will understand why it was given divine honors and used to deceive people unfamiliar with the character and characteristics of this snake. A creature so unique in character and structure must have attracted the attention of every thinking person, and knowledge of the deadly effect of its bite allowed a power-hungry priest or a clever deceiver to pass off this animal as an image or representative of a deity.
Indian cobra or spectacled snake(Naja naja), called in India tshinta-negu, nalla-pamba, naga, in Burma mue-nauk, 1.4-1.81 m long. It is fiery yellow in color, with an ash-blue sheen in certain lighting; this color seems, however, pale, since the spaces between the scales are light yellow or white, and often the corners of individual scales are of the same color. On the back of the head is light yellow or White color so dominant that the darker one appears only in the form of specks, and it is in this place that a pattern resembling glasses* clearly stands out.

* Some subspecies Indian cobra do not have a characteristic pattern in the form of two rings connected by a jumper.

These glasses are bordered by two black lines and are usually much lighter than the surrounding parts, while the places corresponding to the lenses of the glasses are either pure black in color or represent a light ocular spot surrounded by a dark edge. The ventral side is dirty white and often has wide black transverse stripes on the anterior third of the body. But often there are specimens that are black on top, blackish-brown below, those that are olive-brown both above and below, and finally, those that are colored grayish on top and whitish below; in addition, in some areas this species does not have a conspicuous pattern on the back of the head. The main differences from related species are the absence of large scutes behind the occipital scutes, the number of rows of scales in the middle of the body, of which there are 19-23, and the slight height of the sixth upper labial scute.

The spectacled snake is distributed throughout India, southern China, Burma, Siam, the Malay Peninsula, the greater Sunda Islands with the exception of Sulawesi, the Andaman Islands and Ceylon, and in the west throughout Afghanistan, the northeastern parts of Persia and the southern regions of Turkmenistan to the Caspian Sea. In the Himalayas, it is found up to an altitude of 2,500 m. Like most other snakes, it is apparently not associated with a specific area, on the contrary, it settles wherever it finds convenient shelter and enough food. Its favorite home consists of abandoned termite mounds, ruins, heaps of stones and wood, holey clay walls and similar heaps of rubbish, containing holes and hidden gaps that serve as a refuge for the spectacled snake. Tennent points out that in Ceylon she, along with the so-called big-eyed snake(Ptyas mucosus), represents the only snakes that do not avoid the proximity of human dwellings. She is attracted here by the sewage ditches, and perhaps by the prey that she expects to get here, namely rats, mice and small chickens. Often a flood forces her to look for the higher parts of the country that are not flooded, and at the same time the huts built there. As long as she is not disturbed, she usually lies lazily and listlessly in front of the entrance to her home, and when a person appears, as a rule, she hastily hides and only when driven to the extreme rushes at the attacker. If she is not irritated, for example, if she goes hunting, she crawls along the ground wriggling, with her head barely raised and her neck not widened; if she is irritated or at least frightened, she immediately takes the position characteristic of this type, preparing for an attack. Although it is a diurnal snake, it avoids the heat and generally the burning rays of the sun and begins hunting only in the late afternoon hours and often continues to crawl late at night, and therefore some authors clearly consider it a nocturnal animal.
All observers call her movements slow, but she is more agile than they think: she not only knows how to swim, but to a certain extent also climb. One cobra, which fell into the fortress moat and could not climb its steep walls, swam easily and freely for several hours, holding its head and neck shield above the water; others even went to sea voluntarily. While the Wellington, a Government fishery vessel, was anchored in Kudremele Bay, about a quarter of a mile from the shore, one day, about an hour before sunset, a spectacled snake was spotted from her. She swam straight towards the ship and, when she approached 12 m, the sailors began throwing pieces of wood and other objects at her and forced her to turn towards the shore. The next morning they found the animal's footprint on the shore where it had emerged from the water and tracked it to the nearby jungle. Later, one cobra was found and killed on the same ship, which could only have reached it through the anchor chain; this proves that she can climb well too. Tennent heard that one spectacled snake was found on the top coconut tree; “she was attracted, as they said, by the palm sap that was oozing at that time”; in reality, she probably climbed the palm tree to hunt birds or rob nests. They are often spotted on the roofs of houses.
The cobra's food consists exclusively of small animals and, it seems, mainly of reptiles and amphibians, at least Tennent indicates lizards, frogs and toads as the prey it pursues, Fairer, in addition, fish and insects. That it should be dangerous for young chickens, mice and rats is sufficiently clear from the data I cited from the first of the above-mentioned researchers; that she also robs bird nests and especially looks for eggs of domestic birds in chicken coops and dovecotes, Fairer mentions. She has little interest in other snakes and, apparently, does not pursue them. She drinks a lot, but can also endure thirst for a long time without harm, according to observations of captive cobras, for several weeks and even months.
Regarding the reproduction of the cobra, Fairer says that it lays up to 18 elongated, white, soft-shelled eggs, which are equal in size to the eggs of a domestic pigeon. Finson increases that number to 12-20. The Indians tell about the spectacled snake the same thing that the ancients say about the related Egyptian cobra: that the male and female show a certain mutual affection, that where you catch one cobra, for the most part, soon after that you notice another, etc., with one in short, that spectacled snakes have marriage life, and that both sexes resolutely stick together. Tennent notes that he had two occasions to make observations that seem to confirm this story. One adult cobra was killed in the bathhouse of the government house in Colombo, and "its comrade" was found the next day at the same place; in the same way, when a cobra fell into the fortress ditch, then that same morning its “comrade” was found in the next ditch. Whether this happened precisely during the mating period and, therefore, is explained in a very natural way, Tennent does not say anything about this, and therefore we do not know how much this can be considered a matter of chance. Regarding the cubs, the Sinhalese claim that they become poisonous no earlier than the 13th day, when the first molt occurs.
Both in former times and today, the spectacled snake is an object of reverent veneration and even almost idolization and plays an important role in the religious legends of the Hindus. One of the most interesting inventions of this kind is the following: when Buddha once wandered the earth and fell asleep under the rays of the midday sun, a cobra appeared, expanded its shield and shaded the face of the god from the sun. Pleased with this, the god promised her extreme mercy, but forgot about his promise, and the snake was forced to remind him of this, since the vultures were causing terrible devastation among them at that time. In protection from these birds of prey, Buddha gave the cobra glasses, which kites are afraid of. Another story tells about gemstone, "negeme-nik-kia", which is sometimes found in the stomach of a cobra and which it carefully hides, since its indescribable brilliance would attract everyone, like a radiant luminary, and would thereby expose the animal to danger.
During Dellon's stay in Kuranur, around the middle of the 17th century, one of the prince's secretary was bitten by a spectacled snake. They brought him to the city, and with him in a well-closed vessel a snake. The prince was very upset by the accident and called the Brahmins, who touchingly began to point out to the snake that the life of the wounded secretary was very important for the state. Such admonitions were accompanied by the necessary threats: the snake was explained that it would be burned at the same fire as the patient if he died as a result of its bite. However, the divine animal did not relent, and the secretary died. Deep despondency took possession of the prince; however, the thought occurred to him in time that the dead man, perhaps, had incurred the wrath of the gods by some secret sin, and the snake only fulfilled the command of the gods. Therefore, they carried her out of the house in a vessel, set her free, and duly begged her with low bows for forgiveness. Richards' data on the special views that keep Indians from killing snakes have already been reported above. If a resident of Malabar finds a poisonous snake in his house, he asks it to leave in the most friendly manner; if this does not help at all, then he holds food in front of it in order to lure it out, and if even then it does not leave, then he calls on the pious servants of the deity, who, of course, for an appropriate reward, make touching admonitions to the snake. According to information collected by Fairer, the views of Indians, if not all castes, have not changed in this regard to this day. Many of them will never kill a spectacled snake. If someone finds her in his house, he calms her down as best he can, feeds her and protects her, as if harm caused to her should bring misfortune to the house. If the fear of a dangerous and evil guest outweighs superstitious idolization, or, for example, a snake kills one of the inhabitants of the house, then the Indian orders it to be caught, but even now he treats it with respect and caution, takes it to a remote uninhabited place and sets it free so that she peacefully crawls on her way.
Naturally, it is easy for buffoons to deal with such people. The blind crowd considers their tricks to be obvious magic, and the Brahmins, to the best of their ability, support this belief, which is beneficial to them. True, it cannot be denied that buffoons treat these dangerous animals in such a way that they may well inspire even a distrustful European with high respect for their dexterity; but all their art is based solely on an accurate knowledge of the character and characteristics of the snake. Various writers have argued that the spectacled cobra, like its African relative, the Egyptian, breaks off its poisonous teeth before using them for performances, and that their bite cannot cause harm; but Davy most decisively disputes this opinion, and the newest observers completely agree with him. Of course, it may happen that buffoons break out the poisonous teeth of snakes, but usually the cobra has its own deadly weapon and, therefore, can use it; the training she has undergone can hardly prevent her from doing so. Training, however, occurs, but probably does not lead to stopping the animal from biting, and only the agility and attentiveness of the buffoon saves him from the danger that he impudently brings upon himself, although not in all cases. One of these people is killed by a spectacled snake. “The snake charmer,” says Davy, “teases the cobra with blows or quick threatening movements of the hand and again calms it with his voice, slow circular movements of the hands and light stroking. If it gets angry, he skillfully avoids its attack and plays with it only when it is calmed. Then he brings the animal's mouth to his forehead, runs it over his face. The people think that the charmer can safely handle snakes thanks to magic; an enlightened person laughs at this and suspects the buffoon of deception, thinking that he pulled out the poisonous teeth of a cobra; but he is mistaken, and the people are more right. I examined such snakes and found their teeth intact. The buffoons really have magic - of course, not supernatural, but the magic of confidence and courage. They know the morals and inclinations of this snake, they know how reluctantly it puts into action a deadly weapon and that she bites only after she has been greatly teased.Whoever has the confidence and agility of these people can imitate their game, and I have done this more than once. The buffoons can play games with every snake, whether it has just been caught or has been kept locked up for a long time; but they do not dare to do this with any other poisonous snake." The validity of Davy's instructions was sadly confirmed, according to Tennent, in Ceylon by the death of one of these charmers, who, thanks to these ideas, acquired extraordinary audacity in handling snakes, was bitten in the chest by one of them and died on the same day.
Rondo gave a very vivid description of the spell. “At 6 o’clock in the evening, an Indian spellcaster appears on the ship. He is poorly dressed, but as a distinctive feature he wears a turban decorated with three peacock feathers. He brings with him necklaces, amulets and the like in bags, and a spectacled snake in a flat basket. is located on the forecastle: we sit on benches on the quarterdeck; the sailors stand in a circle. He puts the basket down and removes the lid from it. The snake lies curled up at the bottom of it. The figure squats at some distance in front of it and begins to play a plangent note on a special kind of clarinet , a plaintive, monotonous melody. The snake rises a little, stretches out and stands up. It seems as if it sat on its tail, which remains curled. It does not leave the basket. After a while it becomes restless, tries to get acquainted with the place where it is, begins to move, deploys and expands his shield, gets angry, snores more than hisses, quickly moves his tongue and several times rushes towards the buffoon, as if wanting to bite him, while repeatedly jumping up and making awkward leaps. The more she moves her shield, the more she expands it. The figure does not take his eyes off her and looks at her with a strange gaze. After 10-12 minutes, the snake seems less excited, gradually calms down and sways; Finally, as if listening to the magician's gradually weakening music, she lies down, but still moves her tongue with extreme vivacity. Her condition appears to be becoming more and more sleepy. Her eyes, which at first seemed to want to destroy the caster, look at him motionless, as if enchanted. The Indian takes advantage of this moment of weakness of the snake, slowly approaches it, without ceasing to play, and presses first his nose, then his tongue, to its head. This lasts no more than one moment, but at that very moment the snake recovers and with mad fury rushes towards the buffoon, who barely manages to retreat so much that it cannot reach him.
When the magician has finished his game, one of the ship's officers comes up and expresses a desire to see how the Indian puts his lips to the scaly head of the animal. The poor man again begins his monotonous song and again fixes his gaze on the cobra. His efforts are in vain. The snake is in a state of extreme irritation; nothing affects her. She wants to leave the basket and has to close it. We doubt that the cobra still has its poisonous teeth and that the fear expressed by the Indian is well-founded. Therefore, we demand that he let the snake bite two chickens, and we promise him a Spanish piastre for this. He takes a black chicken and holds it in front of the snake. The snake rises halfway, looks at the chicken for a moment, bites and leaves it. The chicken is released and it runs away in fright; 6 minutes later she vomits, stretches out her legs and dies. Another chicken is presented to the snake, it bites it twice, and the chicken dies in 8 minutes."
Count Hertz describes the presentation of buffoons in a slightly different way on his journey around the world. The spectacled snakes with which the charmers had played before him in Madras also lay curled up in flat baskets. The head of the troupe of magicians took the snakes one by one by the head, took them out and laid them on the ground, and only after that began to extract ear-splitting sounds from a strange clarinet, to the end of which was attached a small pumpkin. The animals raised their heads and necks, looked intently into his face and greatly expanded their necks, making no other movements. Then he began to extend his fist to their heads, they moved their heads after the fist, as if with the intention of biting, but did not open their mouths. With the tip of his nose and tongue, this buffoon did the same as the first. He did not try to charm them with his gaze; on the contrary, he often casually touched the animals and finally wrapped them around his neck. The snake's dancing movements were not noticeable at all; her behavior clearly expressed, on the one hand, all the anger and rage of this type of snake, and on the other, fear of the charmer. It was easy to guess that taming consisted of allowing the snake to bite hard or heated objects. “The poisonous teeth were pulled out, as I was convinced myself; the buffoons themselves admitted this.”
The latter is confirmed by the following story of Johnson: “One magician forced a large spectacled cobra to dance in front of a large company. His son, a young man of 16 years old, enraged the animal, was bitten and died an hour later. The father was amazed and swore that the death of his son could not occur from a bite, since the snake had no teeth, and it had often bitten both him and his son without any bad consequences.However, when examining the snake, it turned out that the pulled out poisonous teeth were replaced with new ones, which, although they protruded little, were still "They inflicted a mortal wound on the boy. The old man swore that he had never seen anything like it, and was inconsolable due to the loss of his son."
According to information reported by an educated Indian, and published by Fairer, there are four different classes of people in Bengal who catch and perform snakes. The first of these, incomparably more experienced than the rest, is the Malier class, a low caste of Indians who live by catching and selling snakes, but never engage in buffoonery, magic or healing. The Malliers are poor, pitiful people condemned to a wandering life; but they do not steal and do not arouse any suspicion at all. In the northwestern part of Bengal they are replaced by "modaris", of which some sometimes come to Calcutta. Nayendralala Mitra, the Indian mentioned, has never had the opportunity to observe them closely and therefore knows nothing about them, but notes that they are probably often confused with the "Bediyahs", the gypsies of Bengal. The latter are buffoons, leaders of bears and monkeys, sellers of herbs and amulets, famous healers who treat aches, paralysis and other ailments, masters of “magic and witchcraft,” barbers and surgeons, as well as snake charmers; In general, they do whatever they want until they come into conflict with the police. They are not at all famous as snake charmers. They differ from Maliers in the sense that they force their wives to work with them, which never happens to them. The real snake charmers are the "saniys", called "tubri-wallahs" in Bengal, who are probably also native to north-west Bengal and are distinguished by their yellow clothing and large turban; they carry a well-known pipe, with the help of which they allegedly take possession of snakes and lure them out of their holes. To clear the house of snakes, they, of course, carry a few with them in the folds of their wide clothes, and at the same time show some that are free, or do not show them at all. As tramps, they take whatever comes to hand along the way, but, nevertheless, they cannot be called professional thieves. They roam all over the country and can be found equally in northwestern and southern India. Already the most ancient Sanskrit books talk about them; therefore it is probable that their art dates back to the most remote antiquity. Their pipe must be considered characteristic feature, since it does not exist either in Malye, or in Modaris or Bediyahs.
The spectacled snake is the favorite of all these people because, thanks to its posture in defense and attack, it amazes spectators more than any other poisonous snake, and due to their large number, the snake charmer never suffers a shortage of them. In addition to them, you can sometimes see them in the hands of spellcasters king cobra(Ophiophagus hannah), which exhibits the same characteristics and even greater ferocity than the spectacled snake. Those that are constantly used for performances almost always have their poisonous teeth pulled out and, in addition, the fold in which they lie and where new ones develop to replace them are cut out. However, it must be admitted that snake charmers are very good at handling such poisonous snakes, which also fully possess their own deadly weapons. The dexterity they display when they pick up a poisonous snake crawling in thick grass from the ground with their bare hand and avoid injury, and the confidence with which they then handle the snakes are highly worthy of wonder. Snake charmers are well aware of the danger they are exposed to; they know as well as anyone that there is not a single remedy against the action of snake venom that could be considered reliable, although they themselves indicate such remedies and sell them. In addition to poisonous snakes, they always show non-venomous ones, and they always play the pipe.
In addition to magicians, brahmins also engage in catching and training spectacled snakes. According to Johnson, catchers explore all the depressions in the ground in convenient areas and begin to dig if the ground is smoothed out when exiting, thanks to the crawling and crawling of the snake, since they know that if animals equipped with legs live in a hole, then this place is usually uneven. Having found the snake, they begin to carefully tear apart the hole until they come across its occupant, try to grab it by the tail with their left hand, higher up by the body with their right hand, and pull it through their hand as quickly as possible until they grab it by the back of the head with their index and thumb. Johnson claims that he has seen snakes caught in this manner in the open. However, catchers never go hunting for snakes alone and always carry the necessary tools and means with them so that they can take action in the event of a bite. Thus, one of them usually carries a brazier with coals, which serves to keep in a hot state a small iron instrument the size of an ordinary fork tine, shaped like a snake tooth, with which, if someone is bitten, he burns the wounded place, squeezing out and having first sucked out the blood, and also bandaged the wounded part. Others limit themselves to applying the so-called “snake stone” to the wound, which I will discuss in more detail below. An infusion of bezoar alcohol from wild hemp or tobacco, called gongea, is taken internally, often with good results, according to Johnson.
Reine says that snake catchers sometimes use a small pipe to lure a spectacled snake from its hiding place, and claims that he himself saw this. “One snake charmer came to my bungalow in 1854 and asked permission to show me the dance of his snakes. Since I had already seen this trick more than once, I objected to him that I was ready to give him a rupee if he agreed to accompany me into the jungle and catch me there is a spectacled snake, whose home was known to me. He agreed. I counted his tame snakes, assigned a guard to them with instructions to watch them until my return, then examined the magician himself and made sure that he did not have a snake with him. When we arrived in place, he played a small wind instrument, and after a while a large spectacled snake actually appeared in front of the termite mound, where, as I knew, she lived. At the sight of a man, she tried to hide, but he grabbed her by the tail and began to continuously wave in a circle around him and thus brought her to our bungalow. Here he made her dance, but before taking possession of her, he was bitten on the leg above the knee."
Last words once again confirm Davy's story; they prove that there is actually no need to train a spectacled snake in order to make it perform the so-called dance. However, I will give Kaempfer's story about what to do to discourage snakes from biting. “One Brahmin, in addition to teaching believers, also trained snakes in order to sell them upon completion of training. He had 22 of them, in the same number of clay vessels, which were large enough to allow the snakes to make the necessary movements, and could be closed with lids When the weather was not too hot, he released one snake after another from confinement and taught them for a shorter or longer time, depending on the success they achieved in their art. As soon as the snake crawled out of the vessel and wanted to take flight, the teacher turned her head towards him with the help of several blows with a twig, and at the moment when she wanted to bite him, he presented her with a vessel, taking the bites with it as a shield. Soon the snake was convinced that its rage was leading nowhere, and retreated. This the struggle between man and snake continued for a quarter of an hour or even half an hour, and all this time the snake followed all the movements of the vessel that was held in front of it, expanding its hood and exposing its poisonous teeth to bite.
Thus, she gradually learned to rise as soon as a vessel appeared in front of her. Later, instead of a vessel, the teacher held his hand in front of the snake, but it did not dare to rush at it, thinking that it would bite the clay again. The buffoon accompanied the movements with singing to increase the deception. Despite all the dexterity and caution, he could, however, be wounded and therefore allowed the snake to first bite the cloth and thus get rid of the poison. , apparently, to subordinate the cobra, not without poisonous teeth, to the will of the one who shows it; he even talks about one European who took pleasure in performing such tricks.
Based on all this, it seems that Kaempfer's story is based only on what he heard, and not on his own observations. Perhaps Davy's story seems to support the idea that real cobras are easier to learn than other venomous snakes; but I consider it very doubtful that training can be of any use. Amazing stories are told in India. “Have you ever heard,” Skinner writes to Tennent, “of tame spectacled snakes, which are caught and house-trained, and are allowed to come and go at will, like the rest of the inhabitants of the house? A well-to-do man, living in the Negombo district, he has considerable sums of money in his house, and keeps a cobra as guardian of his treasures instead of dogs. But this is by no means the only case of this kind. I heard of one such case only a few days ago, and from a man who is certainly trustworthy. Snakes crawl throughout the house for fear of thieves, but never try to harm the legitimate inhabitants of the house." Can such stories be believed? I doubt this, although they seem to confirm the ancient stories; I treat them with even greater distrust because their origin seems to me easily explainable. A wealthy and educated person who knows how to properly judge ignorant people uses such a tale to protect himself from unpleasant visits, perhaps sometimes showing several spectacled snakes in order to give his invention a stamp of truthfulness. This is the grain of truth contained in this whole story.
Regarding the effect of the cobra bite, Roussel, Johnson, Breton, Fayrer, Richards and others carried out various experiments that sufficiently clarify how dangerous this snake is. Pigeons died 3 minutes after being bitten, chickens died after 4-6 minutes, dogs suffered before death from 20 minutes to several hours; people - several hours. Johnson found that in all cases the poison lost more and more of its deadly power if the same spectacled snake was made to bite different animals at short intervals; in his opinion, from the experiments he carried out, it follows that the poison, when stored in the glands, becomes increasingly stronger and that in more warm weather it becomes thinner, and also that the snakes in different time have the ability to kill to varying degrees. Breton also found that successive bites lost their force. He let the cobra bite the water snake on the tail. After an hour and a half, the latter could not control the bitten part, gradually weakened and died after 2 hours and 15 minutes, without revealing any special phenomena, except that she was breathing more often. A rabbit, bitten on the shin by the same snake, immediately became paralyzed and weak, suffered mild convulsions, and died 11 minutes later.
The pigeon that was bitten after that died after 27 minutes, the second only after 1 hour 11 minutes, the third after 3 hours 42 minutes, the fourth did not show any signs of poisoning, the fifth also did not suffer at all from the bite. Other poisonous snakes were wounded by the same cobra, and no effect of the poison was detected. Roussel allowed the spectacled snake to bite the pig, which turned out to be completely unable to resist the effects of the poison, and died an hour after the bite. Poisoned dogs behaved differently. Some were relatively calm, only clasping the bitten limb, then lying down, vomiting, making futile efforts to get up and dying; others howled terribly and trembled all over until they fell into an insensible state; Still others at first squealed, tried to run away, showed extreme anxiety, barked, ate more, vomited again, finally became enraged, made strong attempts to escape and barked incessantly until they too became paralyzed and weak. Chickens and pigeons inoculated with the venom of the spectacled snake experienced all the attacks of poisoning and died if the experiment was actually carried out skillfully. Bellanger, physician and director of the botanical garden at Pondicherry, has proved by other experiments that two grains of spectacled snake venom transferred to the surface of the auditory organs (probably the eardrum) of a dog can cause death with very remarkable symptoms, and that the venom released in drops onto the surface eyes, tongue, etc., also causes very serious consequences.
Fairer carried out extensive experiments for three years to determine the effect of the venom of Indian snakes and especially the venom of the spectacled snake. For these experiments, mainly dogs and chickens were used, and, in addition, horses, cattle, goats, pigs, cats, mungos, or striped mongooses, rabbits, rats, vultures, herons, lizards, non-poisonous and poisonous snakes, frogs, toads, fish and snails. All observations were recorded so carefully, but at the same time in such a motley mess, that it is almost impossible for the reader to understand his work and come to a definite conclusion. From all the data it becomes clear that the venom of the spectacled snake acts on all animals with which experiments were carried out, and that its effect is extremely strong, and for the most part extremely fast, and finally, that antidotes of various kinds either have no effect at all or have an extremely insignificant effect. action and that bites affecting a larger blood vessel should be considered certainly fatal. Fairer proved with complete certainty that the opinion that the venom of snakes, and in particular cobras, acts only if it is injected directly into the blood is completely erroneous; on the contrary, the poison can be absorbed by all mucous membranes and can even pass into the blood from stomach.
In humans, the effects of a snake bite are said to often manifest themselves differently than in animals, and it was in them that the body was noticed to become cold, like a corpse, while in dogs the exact opposite was observed, namely a feverish state. Since in India every year a relatively large number of people are bitten by spectacled snakes, and they mostly die, there are enough observations regarding the course of the disease in poisoned people. I want to cite here a few cases that did not end in death, because I consider them more instructive than others.
One woman was bitten on the lower leg; 11 hours later Duffin visited her. She lost her sense of sight and touch; swallowing was so difficult that it was impossible to introduce even the smallest amount of any substance into her stomach. She was not tormented by convulsions, but from the very beginning she fell into a state of weakness that kept increasing. The wound was widened and mercury ointment was applied; Finally, with difficulty, we managed to give the patient a few pills. The first ones did not work, but after the third the patient defecated, and the skin became a little moist. 18 hours after the bite, the patient regained her sense of touch, vision and ability to swallow; in the next three days she sweated profusely; after 8-10 days the weakness disappeared, and the patient began to slowly recover.
One Indian, bitten on the heel, after a quarter of an hour clenched his jaw tightly and appeared dead, showing no sensation when four very large wounds were moistened with a liquid consisting of caustic ammonia, amber oil, wax soap and spirits of wine. They forcibly parted his jaws and literally poured in two bottles of heated Madeira using a funnel, continuing the continuous external use of the above-mentioned liquid. The patient was in such an unconscious state that he could have been considered dead if he had not been breathing from time to time. He remained in this state for 40 hours and only then showed signs of the return of sensitivity; within two hours he began to speak, but remained weak and exhausted for several days.
The natives of India, especially snake charmers and magicians, in addition to the above-mentioned healing remedies, also use many others for snake bites, but usually keep them secret, so that even now it is not known what kind they are and what their effect is. Two very common remedies seem to deserve mention, although in reality they bring little benefit. The first of these is snake stone, called pembu-kelu in Ceylon, the use of which the Sinhalese probably learned from snake charmers who came here from the Coromandel coast. “More than one case of the successful use of this stone, the authenticity of which was fully vouched for,” says Tennent, “people who were eyewitnesses of this told me. One day in March 1854, one of my friends, riding on horseback through the jungle near Bintenne, together with a government official , saw a Tamil who was approaching them with his comrades. Suddenly he jumped into the forest and returned with a spectacled snake, which he grabbed by the head and tail and held tightly. He called his comrade for help to put the snake in a basket with a lid, but handled she was so embarrassed that she bit his finger and held it with her teeth for several moments, as if she could not pull them out.
Blood flowed, and severe pain followed, apparently, directly after the bite. His companion immediately untied his belt and took out two black snake stones, extremely carefully polished and the size of small tonsils, and placed a stone on each wound. They stuck to the wounds, absorbed all the blood flowing from the wounds, remained in this position for about 3 or 4 minutes, while the patient’s friend stroked and rubbed the arm from the shoulder to the fingers, and finally fell off by themselves. The suffering of the bitten person apparently stopped. He began to move his hand, stretching his fingers so that the joints cracked, and moved on without showing any concern. Meanwhile, another Indian took from his traveling bag a small piece of wood, like a root, and carefully brought it to the head of the snake, which immediately pressed its head to the ground, then grabbed it without any fear and rolled it into a circle at the bottom of the basket. He assured that this root made it completely safe to grab a snake, and called it “naya-talik-kalango”, which means the root of the snake plant.”
Another incident occurred in 1853 and was reported by Tennent Lavaliere, who was an eyewitness to it. He met a charmer in the forest who was looking for spectacled snakes, followed him and saw how he found and caught one, but was bitten in the shin, so that blood flowed from the wound. He immediately applied a snake stone to the wound, which stuck firmly and lasted for about 10 minutes; meanwhile the Indian moved back and forth over the stone with some root, which he held in his hand, until the stone fell away. He assured the European that there was nothing more to worry about, and gave him the very snake stone that he had been using. Lavaliere later saw this man quite healthy more than once.
The Indian that Reine talks about used pemba-kelu after the bite, but at the same time bandaged the bitten organ above the bite site. For several minutes he apparently endured severe pain, but gradually began to recover and felt relief when the stone fell away. Having gathered a little strength, he offered the snake a piece of cloth, which it had bitten, grabbed it before it had time to free itself, grabbed the back of its head with his hand and, in the presence of Reine, pulled out its poisonous teeth. Reine followed the entire operation with complete attention, and several other persons assisted him. However, Richards, considering such cases, points out, first of all, that it remains an open question whether the bitten person would have remained alive and well without such treatment; although the bite actually occurred, this does not mean that poisoning certainly followed.
The snake stones and roots that were used in the above cases were later given to Tennent. “The roots,” he said, “are not the same. One of them, apparently, is a piece of a branch of a kirkazon, the other is so dry that identifying it was very difficult, but it looks like a tetrahedral piece of clematis. Several species of the genus kirkazon (Aristolochia), like, for example, Aristolochia Serpentaria, growing in America, has long been famous for helping against snake bites, and the Indian species of this genus (Aristolochia indica) is the plant to which mungos, according to popular belief, resort.” Tennent adds, citing this data, that he does not believe in the effectiveness of these roots and is convinced that they have only an imaginary value, inspiring the snake catcher with courage and confidence in his own dexterity. In this he is undoubtedly right.
Of the nature of the serpent-stone we have been given ample information by the Barrs and Hardys; Tennent's research, however, had the significance that it confirmed previous data. Kolbe already mentions that the Europeans living in Kapland use snake stone and receive it from India, where the Brahmins prepare it. Only they, apparently, know the secret of its composition and will not reveal it to people who do not belong to their caste at any cost. “I am extremely sorry,” says Kolbe, “that the secret is unknown among Christians and that the Brahmins are adamant in this regard, since the mentioned stones really have miraculous powers.” Then comes a description of the use of the stone, which is similar in essential features to that described above. Thunberg, who visited Kapland after Kolbe, also talks about snake stones and points out the following features real stones: if you put them in water, air bubbles rise, and if you put them in your mouth, they stick tightly to the roof of your mouth; when they are applied to a part of the body that has been bitten by a snake, they stick tightly to the wound, suck out the poison and fall off on their own when they are saturated. According to Johnson, the secret of preparation is still in the hands of the Brahmins and brings them significant benefits; but the preparation of snake stones is no longer a secret. Our chemists examined the mass and found it to be burnt bones, lime and charred resin; through their cells, or internal voids, these substances absorb liquid, and, consequently, blood and even poison.
The traveler Hardy, who became acquainted with the preparation of snake stone, used in Mexico, even tells us how it is prepared. “Take a piece of deer antler of any size and shape, wrap it in grass or hay, enclose it in a piece of sheet copper and place it in burning coals until the antler is sufficiently burnt, let it cool, remove the burnt antler from the shell, and it is ready for immediate use. In this state, it is a strong, although cellular, black mass, which in shape and size is similar to a piece of horn." In South Africa, as in Mexico, they take another precaution: they widen the wound, and when the snake stone is completely saturated, it is usually thrown into water or milk, cleaned in this way, dried and applied again to the wound. That such a body can actually have some effect cannot be doubted; however, this effect, of course, is significantly inferior to the action of a blood-sucking jar, and the cases mentioned above can therefore only prove that the patients saved with the help of a snake stone were only slightly wounded and poisoned. Fairer speaks in the same sense.
Kirkazona leaves have recently been used in India with much greater confidence against snake bites and are said to have obtained the best results. “One Indian woman, bitten by a snake,” says Lazter, “was brought to me on a stretcher. She was in a state of complete lifelessness, so I decisively refused to help her. One officer who was in my house supported me in this; he pointed out , that it was best to send her back so as not to lose my healing remedy in the eyes of the people. The woman was cold as marble; I did not notice the blood circulation at all; she looked like a corpse. Her husband was deeply upset by my refusal and begged me at least tried to use my remedy. I explained to him my reasons and did not hide from him my deep conviction that his wife had already died. However, in order not to increase his grief, persistent in refusal, I forcibly parted the jaws of the bitten woman and poured in my medicine, which I composed from three crushed leaves of kirkazon of medium size and ten grains of pepper, infused in an ounce of water.When the drink was poured in, I ordered the body to be brought into a sitting position, and began to wait with some tension, but without the slightest hope of success. After 8 or 10 minutes, I noticed a slight throbbing in my lower lip. I immediately ordered my husband to carry the patient back and forth with the help of my servants, in the hope, if possible, of re-stimulating the circulation. Two people held her by the arms and began to move her back and forth, while her legs dragged helplessly. A few minutes later I noticed that the patient made an attempt to move her legs, and I ordered her to be raised so that her soles touched the ground. A few more minutes, and a deep sigh, accompanied by a strange cry, showed that consciousness was returning. Then came the exclamation: “Fire burns the insides!” At this time, the chest and hands were still cold, like a corpse. I immediately again gave her an infusion of one leaf in an ounce of water, which seemed to soothe the burning pains in the stomach. Now she could show me the place where she was bitten. I ordered it to be rubbed with kirkazon leaves and, thanks to this, she was able to walk without assistance. I told her to walk back and forth for at least two hours, then told her that she had completely recovered, and let her go.”
Lauter tells other similar cases and assures that he treated at least 20 people in whom the use of Kirkazone was successful complete success. During experiments on dogs, it turned out, however, that this plant cannot be considered a remedy suitable in all cases, and that in these animals it caused a terrible fever, from which they died. This different action, according to Lauter, can easily be explained; he argues that the effects of poisoning manifest themselves in different living beings in very different ways.
It may very well be that the old glory of kirkazon will be justified, and it will have a healing effect against snake venom. However, according to the experiments carried out so far by experts in the matter, the hope for Kirkazon leaves turns out to be very poor. “I must unfortunately say,” notes Fairer, “that in all cases where I have used Kirkazone I have been a complete failure, and I generally very much doubt that there is any remedy that could prevent the action of the terrible poison of an adult spectacled snake, although it seems to me possible that larger animals bitten by a spectacled snake can be completely saved through the use of medicine."
If we recall the above-reported, admittedly dubious, data on the outrageous number of people who died from the bites of poisonous snakes, if we take into account Russenberg’s instructions that in 1834 in Ceylon 20 people died from the bites of these snakes, again mostly spectacled ones, and rely In response to Tennent’s assurance that out of 112 people killed in 1851-55 on the same island by wild animals, 68 died from snake venom, you come to the conclusion that the number of enemies of these dangerous reptiles cannot be particularly large. However, the Indians talk about a significant number of small predatory mammals, led by mungos, and various birds of prey, which allegedly assiduously pursue the poisonous reptile.

* Well known worst enemy The Indian cobra is a predator of the civet family of mammals, the mongoose, glorified by Rudyard Kipling under the name Riki-Tiki-Tavi. Mongooses have a significantly lower sensitivity to cobra venom than other mammals (for example, 25 times lower than a dog), however, snake bites are painful for them, and they try to avoid them.

Let me also mention it as a fact, worthy of attention, that an increase in the number of snakes was observed, or at least believed to have been observed, where peacocks and other wild fowl were diligently hunted and in this way the number of these birds was greatly reduced. Based on this, one could conclude that these large and proud birds deal with spectacled snakes in the same way as our domestic chickens deal with vipers. It is also said that the deer of Ceylon destroy many snakes by jumping on them with all four legs at once and trampling them.
The huge number of accidents prompted the English government to resort to more serious measures to destroy poisonous snakes and, above all, spectacled ones. Fortunately, not all Indians think like the above; Many of the lower castes, on the contrary, are engaged almost exclusively in catching or killing poisonous snakes, some in order to give performances with them, others in order to obtain a meager reward from catching and killing them.
In 1858, the government appointed a reward of 4 annas, or 48 pfennings, for each poisonous snake killed and delivered to the authorities, and issued no less than 1,961 rupees in the district alone. When the reward was reduced to 2 annas, the number of snakes delivered suddenly dropped, so that in 1859 only 124 were given out in the same district, in 1860 even only 27, and in 1861 only one rupee; no one wanted to risk their lives for a paltry sum of 2 annas. In 1862, the reward was again increased to 4 annas, and immediately the hunt for snakes began again, so that on the first day 47 were delivered, on the second - 70, later - 118 poisonous snakes per day. From October 15 to December 7, fishing results increased so significantly that 26,920 snakes were brought in. When the governor expressed surprise that so many snakes were caught in cold weather, this was simply and thoroughly explained to him by the increase in the number of snake catchers and their gradually increasing experience. Of course, apparently, the possibility was not excluded that among the poisonous snakes there could be many non-venomous ones; but the officials claimed that they examined the snakes delivered with great care, and believed that 40,000 rupees more would have been issued if they had not paid exclusively for poisonous snakes. However, it turned out, as one might expect, that the cunning natives, in order to more conveniently receive a relatively high income, were engaged in regular breeding of dangerous snakes with great success.
A spectacle similar to that delivered by Indian snake charmers can be seen on every holiday in the squares of Cairo. The dull but loud sounds produced by the large conch shell draw attention to the man who is preparing to give one of those performances which are supremely loved by the sons and daughters of the “victorious capital and mother of the world.” Soon a circle forms around the howie (snake charmer) and the performance begins. The ragged young man plays the role of a clown and lavishes clumsy, rude jokes, which not only meet with complete sympathy from the majority of the audience, but also a response; then the hamadryas shows his intelligence, and the magician's assistant gets up to collect the meager reward in the form of low-value copper coins. The most amazing thing is yet to come: the obvious magic of the magician, whom some of the spectators look at with fear, should only be revealed gradually.
The magician, the clown and the monkey anxiously run and jump over each other, grabbing one object and dragging another. Finally, howie grabs one of the leather bags in which he keeps all his accessories, throws it into the middle of the circle, unties the knot with which it has been tied until then, takes instead of a shell a "sumara", an instrument invented by demons hostile to music, and begins to play its monotonous melody*.

* A snake dancing to the flute of a charmer has been described many times. However, the cobra still does not hear the music, but only follows the human movements to the beat.

Movement is noticed in the bag, something crawls in it closer and closer to the hole, and finally a small egg-shaped head of a snake appears. The head is followed by the front part of the body, and as soon as it comes out of the bag, the animal rises in exactly the same way as the spectacled snake. Then she finally crawls out, wriggling, out of the bag and begins to slowly crawl back and forth within the limits indicated to her by the magician to a certain extent, proudly shaking her small head above her extended neck and following with sparkling eyes every movement of her owner. General horror grips the audience: everyone knows that this snake, which inspires profound fear, is a cobra; but hardly anyone considers it possible that the magician could safely make fun of her anger, and therefore they assume that he was so clever that he broke out her poisonous teeth. Howie turns and twists her, as our menagerie owners do to show how tame she is, grabs her by the neck, spits on her or splashes water on her and, without the spectators noticing, suddenly squeezes one place on the back of her head. At the same instant, the snake stretches out to its full length and becomes like a stick.
The snake with which Egyptian spell casters perform tricks before the people is the Egyptian cobra, or the famous asp of the Greeks and Romans; "Ara", or "raised" of the ancient Egyptians, a symbol of sublimity, the sculptured image of which can be seen on temples on either side of the image of the globe. The king wore her statue on his forehead as an adornment and a sign of his power and authority. It was later named after the ancient Egyptian word "Urdus", and can be considered the most famous snake in all the land. What prompted the amazing people of the Nile Valley to give it such a prominent place among other animals: whether the strange posture it sometimes assumes, or the benefit it brings to farmers by exterminating rats and mice, or the terrible effect of its poisonous teeth, remains an open question. Almost every Greek or Roman writer tells something about the asp, his life and the effects of his poison, the honor he enjoyed, and his use for medicinal purposes. But almost everyone confuses truth with lies and what he himself has seen with fiction. “They find,” says Elian, “asps 5 cubits long. Most of them are black or ash-gray in color, some are fiery.” “Imagine a bloody asp,” Nikandr describes, “with his terrible scales. If he hears a noise, he curls up in a circle and raises his terrible head in the middle. At the same time, the back of his head swells, he hisses furiously and threatens death to everyone who meets him.” ". “This terrible animal,” adds Pliny, “displays, however, in one respect a tender feeling: the male and female live constantly together, and only death can separate them. If one asp is killed, then the other is seized by an incredible thirst for revenge. He pursues the killer, finds it even in the greatest crowd of people, conquers all difficulties, pays no attention to distance, and only a hasty flight across the rivers can save from it. It is difficult to determine whether nature has created more evil or remedies against it. To this vicious snake, for example, she gave weak eyes, and positioned them so that the snake can see not in front of itself, but only to the sides; therefore, it often notices a person only when he steps on it.”
“The Egyptians,” says Elian further, “highly honor asps, and therefore these snakes are tame and courteous. If you raise asps with children, then they do not do them any harm and come out of their holes if you clap your hands; their words do not call. When the Egyptians finish dinner, they soak bread in wine and honey and put it on the table at which they ate, and then clap their hands, as if inviting guests. The snakes immediately come out, stand around the table with their heads raised and allow themselves to be kissed, and calmly eat bread. If an Egyptian walks through his house on a dark night, he also claps his hands. Animals then hide and cannot be stepped on. The image of an asp, which the Egyptians call “thermutis,” is considered sacred among them and adorns the head of Isis in the form of a diadem. The Egyptians claim that asps were not created to harm humanity; but if they claim that the asp spares the good and kills the evil, then this is nonsense. Some add that Isis sends them to the worst criminals. The Egyptians count at least 16 different types of asps, but they say that only Thermutis is immortal. In every corner of the temple, they are said to build dwellings for such snakes and feed them with veal fat." “About one asp,” Pliny in turn adds, “Plutarch says that he usually came to the table of one Egyptian and that he really liked it to the owner. Later he gave birth to cubs, and one of them killed the owner's son. When the asp returned to eat and learned about the misfortune, he killed his cub and never showed up in the house again." "Not a single person,” Elian further tells, “bitten by an asp, they say, remained alive. Therefore, the Egyptian kings wear, as I have heard, the image of an asp on their diadem, as a sign of the invincibility of their dominion. By inflating its neck, the asp deprives the sight of those exposed to its breath. Poisonous teeth are covered with a thin skin-like covering. When the asp sinks its teeth, this skin moves away and the poison pours out. The skin then covers the teeth again. The mark of an asp's bite, they say, is not very clear, since its deadly poison, they say, spreads very quickly throughout the body, so that only minor traces remain on the skin. Therefore, those sent by Augustus to Cleopatra could only notice two barely visible pricks, which explained her mysterious death".
“If someone is bitten by an asp,” says Dioscorides, “then only thin punctures are visible; little blood flows from the wound, and it is black; often death occurs before a third of the day has passed.” “Bitten by an asp,” Pliny further points out, “falls into an unconscious state and sleep. Of all snakes, the asp has the most deadly poison. Introduced into the blood or a fresh wound, it kills instantly, smeared on old abscesses - only slowly. In general, it can be avoided without harm, drink as much as you want, and also eat animals that have died from the bite of an asp. From the saliva of an asp, Aristotle assures, they prepare a poison that causes decay, against which there is no remedy. If in Alexandria someone was sentenced to death and he had to die a quiet death , then, according to Galen, the asp was allowed to bite him in the chest. The excellent Athenian statesman and famous scientist Demetrius of Phalerum, as Cicero assures, took his life by letting the asp bite him. As the most important enemy of this snake, they always point to the ichneumon, or Egyptian mongoose; but Aristotle says that he always, before attacking a poisonous snake, calls his assistants and never approaches it without first covering himself with a shell of silt."
Egyptian cobra(Naja haje), which the settlers of southern Africa also call the “spitting snake”, is somewhat larger than its Asian relative, since the length of an adult specimen can reach 2.25 m. Its sixth labial scute is much higher than the rest of the labial scutes, as it merges with the temporal scute lying above it and forms a very large plate that touches the postocular scutes in front. As for the color of the Egyptian cobra, one can say as little in common about this as about the color of the spectacled snake. Most cobras, especially Egyptian ones, are uniformly straw-yellow in color above and light yellow below, but have several darker transverse stripes of varying widths on the underside in the neck area, each of which stretches across several abdominal shields. But there are varieties that represent all shades on top from straw yellow to black-brown.

They say that Egyptian farmers do not leave their work because of a cobra when they meet it in the fields, because they know that it does not attack if you stay at some distance from it, but lies calmly, raising its head, and never ceasing to follow the person. This instruction needs correction. All Egyptians are extremely afraid of the cobra and, if possible, always kill it; As for the opinion that she does not attack, it should be noted that, however, she usually hides when she sees a person, and as quickly as possible, but she immediately gets up and takes a defensive position if someone really comes towards her, and In general, he very clearly shows his irritability and ferocity. If she thinks that she can bite, then, according to the unanimous assurances of various snake catchers, she rushes at the enemy and the latter must then not yawn. These statements of the Egyptians are confirmed by Smith, Anderson and Livingston, or rather Waller, the publisher of the last communications of this traveler. Smith notes that the Egyptian cobra never takes flight and often goes from defense to attack. Anderson and Livingston also relate typical cases that confirm the same. “One of my friends,” says the first, “barely escaped once from such a snake. When he was busy collecting a rare plant, the cobra rushed towards his hand. He had no time to turn around, and he ran backwards as fast as "Only he could. The snake followed on his heels and would have caught up with him if this hunt had lasted a few more seconds. But at that moment he tripped on an anthill and fell backward. As he lay, he saw the snake rush past like an arrow." The validity of this story could be doubted, since Anderson is telling something that he did not experience himself. Livingston's story, or rather Waller's, if he accurately conveys the event, speaks even more in favor of the fact that the cobra attacks itself. "One little girl died in a terrible way. She was walking among the porters when suddenly a big snake, bit her in the shin and disappeared into a nearby hole. It happened in an instant, but was enough to mortally wound the poor girl. All means were used, but in less than 10 minutes the child gave up the ghost. This completely reliable incident proves the truth of the stories of some travelers to various parts of Africa. The natives claim that a large poisonous snake pursues and overtakes its prey with the speed of lightning, and that those who know how dangerous and agile it is avoid approaching its refuge. The following circumstance is remarkable: one Arab told the porters whom he met later in Zanzibar that after a short time after the aforementioned accident, he set off on the same road, and that one of his porters was attacked in the same place by the same snake and the outcome was just as unfortunate." Although the snake here is not called a cobra, it could hardly be any another.
It is worthy of note that the settlers in southern Africa and the natives of the western coast share the belief of the ancients that the Egyptian cobra can spit venom and thereby harm the attacker *.

* The spitting cobra of South Africa is classified as the collared cobra (Hemachatus haemachatus).

Gordon Camming assures that he himself had a trouble of this kind, and as a result he had to endure severe pain all night. Gordon Camming, it is true, often relates incidents for which he cannot answer, and in this case he probably conveyed only the generally held opinion of the natives; however, there appears to be some truth here. “Egyptian cobras,” Reikhenov writes to me, “together with the noisy viper, are very common on the Gold Coast. They live in the steppes and avoid dense forest. In the midday heat, they willingly crawl out onto the roads to bask in the sun. If someone comes across them, then they rise up, hiss, inflate their necks and spit at a distance of 1 meter at the troublemaker, and, apparently, always aim at his eyes. The amount of liquid that they throw out is quite significant, since snakes often spit three times in a row, and at the end saliva drips from their mouths. According to the missionaries on the Gold Coast, as well as the natives, if this saliva gets into the eye, it causes blindness. I note that Effeldt told me of similar observations made on rattlers snakes, but at the same time assured that such saliva, which can be mixed with poison, is not able to produce any other effect on the skin or cornea than any other caustic liquid." Falkenstein also agrees with Reikhenov, who, however, also did not observe this himself; he considers this apparently a very common occurrence. “If a cobra spits on a black man, the latter, as I was informed, washes the corresponding places with woman’s milk, which is considered a reliable healing agent.”
Pejuel-Leshe heard stories about spitting and jumping almost everywhere where this snake is found, but could not be convinced of their truth. “They say that she,” he writes, “not only jumps on the attacker, but also sprays him at a distance of 3-4 steps with several drops of liquid, which causes malignant inflammation and severe pain on sensitive parts of the body. A reliable remedy in Loango and around the Congo it is believed to anoint the places where the poison has entered with the milk of a woman, while the Kru and Boer people in south-west Africa also praised me for the use of human saliva as a means of destroying poison.The most judicious of the Boers, Botha, is an excellent hunter and observer , ridiculed these stories and generally disputed that this or any other known snake “spits.” I myself have more than once had occasion to deliberately tease cobras seen in open places (they also live in the savannah), but I have not seen any one of them ejected liquid or actually attacked. The strongly pursued cobras, however, curled up, rose up and assumed a threatening position known from the Indian appearance, but immediately fled again. In Kinzembo I was invited to lunch at Bannister's trading post. When I entered the yard, I found the owner and several other Europeans engaged in attaching a large meat fork to a long stick; a "cuspideira", a cobra, a real spitting snake, has just been seen in the dining room; They wanted to hold her or pin her with a fork and hand her over to me alive. At my request, the unpleasant guest lying in the corner was first offered some fresh goat's milk; he didn't pay attention to him. Finally, not without difficulty, we drove him out into a wide sandy yard, devoid of any vegetation. Here we began to tease the snake in every possible way, but all we could achieve was that it rose several times in the greatest rage and, opening its mouth wide, uttered an almost snoring hiss several times. But she didn’t “spit” or “jump”; Each of the Europeans present was convinced of this with me.
Finally, I cut off the snake's head with a saber-like hunting knife. This head, lying on the sand under the scorching rays of the sun, bit the stick that touched it 10 minutes later. I therefore do not want to dispute either spitting or jumping; but I myself have never been able to observe this, nor have I heard any calm observer confirm it as an eyewitness. The position during an attack, which, of course, is essentially only a defensive posture, can give rise to various mistakes; it really seems that the animal is preparing to jump: the front part of the body rises vertically, the neck inflates and expands to the sides, the small head leans forward with a hiss. In this position, the snake with its original flexible movements even presents an attractive spectacle. If it were not poisonous, one would feel the desire to keep it in order to admire it. I don’t think that the largest of the cobras that I observed and the length of which was not a full 2 m could rise upward more than 0.5 m. In Loango they also say that a spitting snake is kept in the branches of bushes and low trees and in this case is often surrounded by a swarm of screaming birds."
Hesse, who lived three years in Lower Guinea and studied the animal world of that country in detail, is, of course, familiar with all the indications regarding the nature of the spitting snake and, nevertheless, does not cite a single case that could confirm this widespread opinion. Schintz, who explored south-west Africa for many years, also cannot report anything about the spitting and jumping of this snake, although it sometimes threatened him, as at Ondong. “The presence of mice,” writes Schintz, “was obviously the reason why another and, moreover, much more dangerous neighbor, a cobra, settled with us, the existence of which my people told me several times, and I did not trust their stories. Once at night I already fell asleep when a rustling and crackling sound in the herbarium under my bed woke me up. Matches and a candle were at hand, I, suspecting nothing, lit a fire, and at the same moment, in front of my face, the flexible body of the most terrible of the poisonous snakes in Africa rises up. "The angry snake flares its neck wide, but I have already jumped up and fired a full charge of bird shot at it from close range. In the morning, we measured the killed animal and found that it was 2 m long." In relation to the methods of movement, the Egyptian cobra is apparently completely similar to the spectacled snake. She is also agile on land, often and voluntarily goes into the water, swims and climbs very well, like her relative.
The prey of the Egyptian cobra consists of various small animals, especially field mice, gerbils and jerboas, ground-dwelling birds and their offspring, lizards, other snakes, frogs and toads, depending on the area and circumstances. In general, it, like all poisonous snakes, can be useful by its rapacity, but the benefit it brings to man can hardly be highly valued, and the general persecution to which it is subjected is, of course, quite justified.
Each Egyptian buffoon catches his own cobras, which he needs for his performances, and very in a simple way. Armed with a long, strong stick made of mimosa wood, he visits places that promise prey and explores all convenient hiding places until he sees a cobra. A wad of rags is attached to one end of the stick, which the catcher offers to the snake as soon as it rises in a threatening manner and pretends to move from defense to attack. In a rage, she bites the rags, and at the same instant the catcher with a quick movement pulls the stick back with the intention of breaking the snake’s teeth. But he is never satisfied with one attempt and teases and irritates the snake until it bites many times, certainly loses its poisonous teeth and is completely exhausted. Now he firmly presses her head to the ground with a stick, carefully approaches, grabs her by the neck, squeezes a place known to him on the back of her head, thus puts her in tetanus and finally examines her mouth to see whether the poisonous teeth have really been pulled out. He knows very well that this weapon is renewed by itself, and therefore never fails to repeat from time to time the above-described biting of rags.
I was convinced of the truth of the above as a result of my own observation. During our stay in Fayum near Lake Merida, a howi once appeared to us and began to assure us that snakes had settled in our home, and that he had come to drive them away. I objected to him that we had already taken care of this ourselves, but that we were ready to allow him to give a performance before us. He immediately opened the bag of snakes he had brought with him and made 6-8 cobras “dance” in our room. Then I asked him to bring me several cobras that still have poisonous teeth, since I know that the ones we see in front of us no longer have these teeth. He argued the opposite until we called ourselves snake charmers from Frankistan, the country of the Europeans, therefore, to some extent, his comrades in the specialty. I have the good fortune that when I visit a menagerie and am recognized, I am treated with the greatest courtesy and called “Mr. Colleague”; this happiness helped me in this case too. Our howie winked meaningfully and uttered a few ordinary phrases about “live and let live, the cruelty of fate, the difficulty of getting bread, stupid people, sons, grandsons, great-grandsons and descendants of donkeys” (he meant his highly respected spectators) and etc. In conclusion, he promised, probably more motivated by the offered reward than by comradely feelings, to bring me, a European snake charmer and his friend, a famous doctor, a large Egyptian cobra with poisonous teeth. The very next day he again came to our room with the familiar leather bag on his shoulder, put the bag on the floor, opened it without any grimace with the greatest caution and began, holding a stick at the ready, to wait for the snake to appear. A graceful head appeared, but before part of the body could appear, so that the cobra could become a “macaw”, i.e. expand his neck, he pressed it to the ground with a stick, grabbed right hand behind the back of the head, with the left in the middle of the body along with the leather bag enclosing it - and when the mouth opened, we saw both intact poisonous teeth. “So, my brother,” he said, “my word is the word of truth, my speech is without deception. I caught her, dangerous, without damaging her. God is great and Mohammed is his prophet.” A minute later the cobra was swimming in a very large wide vessel filled with alcohol, and making a vain effort to push out the stopper. For several minutes the alcohol of wine apparently had no effect on her. the slightest action, but after a quarter of an hour her movements became weaker, and after another quarter of an hour she lay curled up motionless at the bottom of the vessel.
The natives of West Africa, as Pehuel-Leche can attest, do not resort to such complex techniques when catching venomous snakes, even when dealing with an agile cobra. Under favorable circumstances, the most fearless of them simply grab the poisonous snake by the neck, press their thumb to its head and carry it freely. Most take with them for fishing a stick with a short-cut fork, with which they press the neck of the prey to the ground immediately behind the head before grabbing it. Regarding southwestern Africa, Schintz says: “Snakes were always brought alive, without exception; I even remember that I once received from a little boy a cobra, the most dangerous of the snakes of southern Africa, 2.25 m long, which he carried with bare hands on a dark night two hours away."
Despite all the care that Howie takes when catching and handling snakes, sometimes it happens, however, that a snake bites him and he dies. As far as I know, he does not use the antidote. In Kapland, the means to which they are attributed are in general use. healing powers. The British use a special liquid, ammonia, etc.; Dutch settlers, according to Anderson, rip open the breast of a live chicken and place it on the wound caused by a snake bite. In their opinion, if the poison is fatal in a chicken, they immediately show signs of poisoning, i.e. she weakens, lowers her head and dies. After the first, take a second, third and fourth chicken, if it seems necessary, until no more signs of poisoning are visible on it. The snakebite is now believed to be out of danger. A frog, which is used in the same way, provides, however, the same service, i.e. of course none. A type of white bean that grows in parts of southern Africa, called Herero bean, is also considered a remedy for the bites of snakes and other poisonous animals. This bean is cut, placed on the wound, and it sticks to it so tightly that it can only be removed with force, but it falls off on its own when the poison is sucked out. Previously it was considered highly effective means turtle blood; Therefore, the natives always carried it with them on their travels and took it when necessary, and at the same time smeared it on the wounded area. There is nothing to mention about what can be expected from such funds.
The Egyptian cobra often ends up in Europe alive, but usually only with its poisonous teeth pulled out, and for the most part dies, although it gets used to captivity more easily than other poisonous snakes, soon takes to eating and gradually comes to terms with its fate. At first, when the owner approaches her premises, she constantly becomes “macaw” and sometimes remains for hours in this position; however, later her irritability decreases, although she never becomes friends with the owner. The cobras that Effeldt kept in captivity, although they lacked poisonous teeth, soon began to eat. They ate first live, later dead mice and birds, preferred mammals to birds and disdained reptiles and amphibians, at least they did not attack them and showed such aversion to them that they moved away if they moved near them. Water, apparently, was certainly necessary for them in order to feel well: they bathed regularly and with visible pleasure stayed for hours in their pool of water. After about a year, their poisonous teeth formed again, and now they had to be handled with extreme caution, since their attacks are carried out unexpectedly and with lightning speed, and they move their heads up or forward surprisingly far.
Gunther gave a detailed and attractive account of their life in captivity based on observations made in the London Zoological Garden. “A remarkable contrast to the sluggish water snakes are their dangerous neighbors, two magnificent specimens of the black variety of the Egyptian cobra. Given their liveliness and size, they require a fairly large room. The glass of the cage is covered with oil paint to a third of the height and is therefore opaque in order to provide more peace snakes, which, given their irritability, would be in constant excitement, partly in order to quickly induce them, if they had to be teased, to rise up and look out from behind the darker part of the glass. This they always do for the most insignificant reason. If at the same time or during feeding, they approach each other, then a fight begins between them: they turn to one another with their bodies raised, widen their necks as much as possible, and each tries to rise higher than the other, and they constantly bite towards the enemy. It is remarkable that these animals do not inflict wounds on each other, but when a third cobra was placed among them some time ago, a battle began, during which the last one was probably bitten, since the next morning it was found dead*.

* The Egyptian cobra is a rather aggressive animal. If several individuals settle in one terrarium, they may have serious fights over food, sometimes ending in the death of one of the rivals.

Cobras kill animals placed with them, even if they do not eat them. The movement that occurs when biting occurs with extreme speed; although you see that the snake has touched the animal, you do not think that it has actually been bitten until a few seconds later when it begins to twitch. The mouth opens very little, and the snake scratches rather than pierces its teeth, in the same way as if, holding the needle perpendicular to the side of the animal, it is drawn down instead of stuck into the body. They often lie in the water for a long time; They completely disappear under the carpets only in winter.”
True cobras include another poisonous snake found in southern Asia, perhaps the most terrible and at least the longest of all, which we will call the king cobra. The occipital scutes are surrounded by three pairs of very large scutes, of which the two anterior ones should be considered the upper temporal scutes. Smooth scales, strongly overlapping each other, form 15 oblique longitudinal rows around the middle of the body, the anterior subcaudal scutes - only one, the rear - two rows. Some distance behind the long, frontally grooved poisonous tooth there is a second small solid tooth.
King Cobra(Ophiophagus hannah), called sunkerkhor in Bengal, gnanbok in Burma, reaches a length of 3.38-3.75 m, truly enormous for poisonous snake. Beddom even killed one such cobra 4.26 m long, and the largest specimen in the London Museum is, according to Boulanger, 3.96 m**.

* * The maximum size of an adult king cobra is 5.5 m.

The part of the occiput capable of expansion is relatively smaller than that of other cobras; the color varies in various ways, for the most part the color is olive green above and pale green below. All head scutes, as well as scales of the neck, rear part of the body and tail with a black border; the body and tail are painted with numerous alternating black and white oblique stripes, converging towards the head; ventral scutes with blackish marble pattern. Snakes of this species, colored in this way, are found in the Malacca Peninsula, Bengal and southern India. King cobras living in the Philippine Islands have a brownish-olive color on the front part of the body, black-edged scales on the back, and each tail scale is decorated with a very prominent white ocellated spot with a black edge. Specimens from Kalimantan are distinguished by a uniform yellow-brown color on the upper side, yellow chin and throat, black the rest of the underside and a slightly lighter color in the middle of each scale on the back of the body and tail. Juvenile king cobras have even more color variations. Some are painted on a black background with numerous yellow narrow transverse stripes, equally spaced from each other and directed obliquely to the rear; the head is decorated with four yellow transverse stripes, one of which passes through the end of the muzzle, the second through the frontal scutes, the third across the crown, the fourth through the back part of the head to the corners of the mouth. In other specimens the belly is black, and the yellow transverse stripes widen on the back; in others the belly is white, and each shield has a blackish edge. Some young ones, Beddom found, are so similar to the same harmless tree snake that they can be confused.
The range of this highly remarkable snake extends over almost all parts of India and the East Indian archipelago. In addition to southern India, it has also been observed in the Andaman Islands, Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan and the Philippine Islands.

In general it is rare, but in Sikkim and Assam, on the contrary, it appears to be found quite often and is not a particularly unusual phenomenon in Burma. In eastern Bengal it is found in places more often than would be desirable, and boldly approaches small towns, even larger cities. Anderson received one from the botanical garden in Calcutta, the other near Mutlah. In the Himalayas it is said to be found up to an altitude of 2,000 m.
As far as can be judged from the available data, it inhabits mainly sparse forests or jungles rich in grass and most readily settles in hollows, since it climbs well, at least it can often be seen resting on branches. She also goes into the water from time to time, as she swims excellently. One of Fairer’s friends told him that not long before he had noticed a king cobra in a river while he was floating in a boat downstream. The snake easily swam through the water, raising its head, but when it was wounded by shot, it tried to hide on the shore as quickly as possible, and was killed there.
The king cobra's food appears to consist mainly of other snakes*.

* The king cobra can even attack other poisonous snakes, kraits, cobras, and ornate adders.

Her hunt for snakes is the basis for the belief, widespread in some parts of India, that she enjoys royal power among snakes. One very intelligent Indian assured Torrance that he had seen with his own eyes how a king cobra ate other snakes. The narrator was then 14 years old and was on the flat roof of his house when a king cobra appeared nearby, apparently unable to notice him; she raised her neck, expanded her hood, as cobras usually do, then uttered a hissing hiss and was immediately surrounded by 10 or 12 snakes, which crawled from all sides and gathered in front of their king. This last one looked at them for a short time, then rushed at one of them and swallowed it. The Indian's observation is, in general, correct, but the conclusion from it, of course, is false: the narrator saw nothing more than the imaginary king hunting for snakes. That the king cobra eats them has been proven beyond any doubt by the observations of reliable researchers. “To the two whom I kept in captivity,” says Kantor, “I regularly threw a snake every 14 days, no matter whether it was poisonous or non-poisonous. Having seen the prey, the cobras emitted a loud hiss, expanded their hood, raised the front part of their body, and remained in this position. position, as if wanting to take good aim, watching every movement of the prey, and then rushed at the victim.
When it was poisoned and killed, they swallowed it and then indulged in lazy peace for about 12 hours."
Those snakes that Fairer got had their poisonous teeth pulled out by the spellcasters, so they completely lost their liveliness, submitted to the power of their masters and behaved exactly like the spectacled snakes with which buffoons play. They twice ate snakes killed by a cobra in the presence of Fairer. The owner put the head of the tree snakes into the mouth of the king cobras, and they slowly swallowed them over about a quarter of an hour, shaking their heads and expanding their neck shield. By squeezing the poisonous gland, we managed to extract a few drops of poison. They were injected into the body of a chicken. Three hours later she died with the same painful symptoms that occur after a cobra bite, and her blood turned out to be coagulated upon examination. Later, Fairer obtained another king cobra, only 2 m long. It seemed sluggish and unwilling to bite, but from time to time it rose up, expanded its neck shield and hissed. The live tree snake locked in her cage remained untouched, and it also did not attack the dog; in short, she seemed to be anxious to avoid any disturbance and to remain alone. The snake charmer, in view of the strength and danger of the king cobra, handled it with visible reluctance and noticeable caution, and if they demanded that he take it, he did not agree to do anything with it without the help of a comrade. Over time, he agreed to do the usual things with her, but only if another spellcaster held her by the tail.
Such caution is fully justified: the king cobra is as ferocious as a dangerous animal, which not only withstands an attack, but even pursues the enemy when his back is turned, completely contrary to the morals of other snakes of this genus. This is what Kantor says, and all the other observers who have encountered the king cobra unanimously say so. An officer in Assam was attacked by a king cobra and exposed to the greatest danger; She even pursued one Burmese, according to another who told this story to the British, for a long time. He came across several young king cobras, which he believed were being guarded by their mother. The latter instantly turned to the alien. He ran as fast as he could, and terror gave him wings. Thus, he happily reached a small river and, without hesitation, threw himself into its waves to swim to the other side. But the river did not stop the mad snake, and it came closer and closer to the frightened fugitive, who already imagined its sparkling eyes and teeth ready to sink. As a last resort, he threw his turban to the ground; the snake furiously rushed at him and began to bite the loose fabric. Thanks to this, the fugitive gained time and happily ran away. I do not deny that this description could be influenced by the fear suffered, that it could be greatly exaggerated, and partly fictitious; but that the snake is really pursuing, this seems beyond any doubt. Richards, who is very calm and critical of all stories about poisonous snakes, also admits that king cobras are dangerous, but significantly limits his statement. “This snake,” says Richard, “indisputably attacks more readily than any other with which I have had the opportunity to become acquainted; however, we, Wall and I, found that handling a large king cobra, just caught, is hardly more difficult than "with a freshly caught cobra of the most agile variety. I even believe that the latter, due to its extreme mobility and restlessness at the beginning of life in captivity, is more dangerous for the one who deals with it." Moreover, this author says elsewhere: “this snake is also readily shown by charmers, both due to its majestic appearance and the fact that it is easy to handle.”
The venom of the king cobra, according to Kantor's experiments, is extremely powerful. The dog dies approximately 14 minutes after the bite, and even in the cold season, when, as is known, the venom of all snakes is less dangerous than in the hot months. A person, according to Maclay, can die from a bite in 3 minutes. The king cobra tolerates captivity well; a large specimen of this snake lived in the London Zoological Garden for 12 years 7 months; during this time she was fed almost exclusively on local snakes.
Australia, which is so rich in poisonous snakes, and the neighboring islands belong to another large genus of snakes, which probably includes 25 species. appearance they closely resemble real snakes, but can be distinguished by their grooved teeth. We will call them Echiopsis(Echiopsis). In body shape and tooth structure, they are similar to slates, but differ from them in that in the front part of the upper jaw behind the short grooved poisonous tooth there is a row of small, crooked and pointed teeth without grooves. The head, shaped like an unequal quadrangle, is flat and rounded at the edge of the snout, the body is thick, the tail is of moderate length or short. Smooth dorsal scales are of the same size and arranged in 15-21 rows; the scales of the dorsal crest are similar to the others; The underside of the tail is always covered with one simple row of scutes. All also differ in that they give birth to live young. Of particular interest to the Germans is that one species of this genus is also found in German New Guinea, and several others on the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago.
One of the most famous and terrible species of this genus, short Echiopsis(Echiopsis curta), a snake 1-1.5 m long, distinguished by its smooth scales arranged in 19 rows and a parietal scute that is almost twice as long as it is wide. The color and pattern of this snake varies significantly, like many of its relatives. Usually the head is one-color black, the body is olive-colored with wide brown or black transverse stripes.
However, there are also specimens of a uniform dark olive-brown color without transverse stripes; the hind parts of the body and the upper side of the tail are mostly one-color blackish; the entire underside is pale yellow.

How many of the names used among the colonists refer to this snake cannot be determined with certainty, and therefore the area of its distribution cannot yet be established. Where it is found, it is very common; Thus, in Tasmania, Verreault was able to collect more than 40 specimens during a short stay. According to Bennett, they are extremely afraid of her, since her bite always entails the most serious consequences. One nine-year-old boy from Sydney was bitten by one of these snakes in October 1858; Unfortunately, his family did not immediately use any suitable remedy, but sent the boy to a doctor who lived about 2 English miles from them. When the latter began to help the patient, he was already in a very pitiful state, was drowsy, lost the ability to see with his right eye, and generally suffered seriously from the effects of the poison. On the little finger where he was bitten, only two small dots were noticeable, but there was barely any inflammation or swelling visible. They made incisions, sucked out the wound, gave ammonia and other irritating substances, forced the poor boy to run non-stop to drive away drowsiness, as blacks usually do, but did not achieve the slightest success; 8 hours after the bite, the boy began to have convulsions and died.
The short Echiopsis appears to reproduce greatly: it often has 32 young, and Morton even claims to have found more than 100 young in one female he killed. However, the same thing is said about other Echiopsis.
Viper-shaped death snake(Acanthophis antarcticus) serves as a representative of the genus deadly snakes(Acanthophis), the distinctive features of which are a wide head, covered up to the front half with large scutes, nostrils lying on the side and opening in the middle of a large scute, and a strongly pointed tail, covered from below with simple unpaired scutes, which ends in a horny spike. The supraocular shield protrudes at an angle at the posterior edge, apparently, like in vipers, has a certain mobility and gives the snake an evil appearance. Of the 19 rows of scales, the middle ones on the anterior half of the body are more or less clearly keeled. Only one species is known*. In addition to Australia and New Guinea, we now know this snake also from the eastern Moluccas, where it reaches westward to Ceram and Amboina.

* Currently the genus includes 3 species.

“The deadly snake,” says Bennett further, “is common in New South Wales, even near Sydney. It is found in dry, sandy places, often in streets and paths, where it lies curled up during the day, and continues to lie when the enemy approaches; this circumstance makes her all the more dangerous. I myself almost touched my foot to the first of them that I met in this country, but, fortunately, I noticed her in time. Her short, thick, peculiarly colored body, wide head and evil eyes warn against her and a layman, and the expression on its face is so repulsive that it can only be surpassed by the expression on the face of a noisy viper. Its food consists mainly of frogs and small birds; at least, I found the latter in the stomachs of those I examined."
The natives claim that no one dies from the bite of this snake, that the one who is bitten, at most, feels unwell for some time and is sleepy, and then recovers; Europeans were convinced of the opposite. Cunningham tells a strange story. During the mating season of snakes, a hunting dog found two viper-shaped deadly snakes and called its owner, who cut off the head of one of them; the other managed to escape. About 10 minutes after this, another dog ran through the same area, was bitten by the severed head and soon died with a terrible howl and twitching. Biological encyclopedia

- (Serpentes), suborder of reptiles of the order Squamata. Legless animals with a thin, highly elongated body, lacking movable eyelids. Snakes are descended from lizards, so they have many similarities with them, but two obvious signs allow... ... Collier's Encyclopedia

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Family: Elipidae (slates)
The coral adder (Micrurus corallinus) belongs to the family Elipidae, order Squamate.

External signs of a coral adder

Coral adder – small snake with a body length of 60-70 cm. The head is small, blunt in shape. The tail is about ten centimeters long. The mouth opening stretches weakly. The skin color of the coral adder is red with evenly alternating black rings. On the front and back of the body, black rings are edged with narrow white-green stripes. All rings are covered with black speckles, because each scale at the end is black in color.

The head of the coral adder is black and blue, starting from the front to the posterior end of the frontal shield. A wide white-green stripe runs across both occipital scutes, which continues down behind the eye and passes to the lower jaw. Behind this ribbon is a black collar, which consists of 1 black ring in front of the red stripe. The tail has 8 whitish rings that stand out against the background of the black skin color. The tail ends in a short white tip.

The upper jaw has grooved teeth.

There is a poison gland located behind the eye. Some species of snakes imitate skin color coral adders. In appearance, they can be confused with a milk snake and are classified as a royal striated snake.

Non-venomous snakes, as a rule, differ from the poisonous coral adder in the pattern of alternation of rings with different colors. “Red and yellow promise death, but red and black do no harm.” This rule only applies to coral adders found in the southern and eastern United States.

In other regions, coral adders have a variety of morphological changes in skin color.

Among them there are individuals with only pinkish or blue rings, or red rings merge with black stripes. There are specimens that do not have colored rings.

Distribution of the Coral Adder

The coral snake is distributed in the forested areas of Eastern Brazil. The habitat continues south to the Mato Grosso plateau. This type of snake sometimes appears near human settlements.

Habitats of the coral adder

Coral adders live in humid tropical forests. They prefer areas with sandy or moist forest soil. Not found in swampy areas. Snakes hide among dense bushes or in fallen leaf litter. Sometimes they are buried in the ground, but during rains they appear on the surface of the soil.

Coral adder lifestyle

Coral adders are nocturnal reptiles. They do not appear in open areas; they hide among dense vegetation. Found near bodies of water, as it often drinks water. But it does not plunge into water. Even during the hot period, coral adders, unlike other types of snakes, are quite active. They molt about 6 times a year.

Coral adder - poisonous snake

Coral adders in their habitat avoid collisions with people and try to hide in dense vegetation. They are aggressive only if they protect the egg laying. Mostly snakes bite a careless person who accidentally steps on a snake. The coral adder bites with two small teeth located on the upper jaw.

At the moment of the bite, the poisonous snake firmly holds the caught victim with its teeth so that the poison paralyzes and immobilizes it. This method of introducing a toxic substance distinguishes the coral adder from some types of poisonous snakes, which immediately release the victim after an attack and bite. And the coral adder leaves bite marks on the victim’s body from the palatal teeth. If the bite is applied “sliding”, then a painful scratch appears on the skin and less toxic substance gets in, so poisoning will be minimal.

With a small ingestion of coral adder venom, signs of poisoning do not appear immediately.

Local and paralytic symptoms do not develop immediately, although during a bite the body enters lethal dose poison contained in the glands of the snake. If the bite occurs on the lower limb, the marks from the teeth are not at all invisible, since the teeth of a poisonous snake are small. Painful symptoms are dull in nature. But poisoning with coral adder venom is accompanied by a single vomiting.

If 5-10 minutes have passed after the bite, then blood appears in the vomit and the headache. Sometimes, under the influence of poison, acute cardiovascular failure develops, and as a result, death.

Coral adder nutrition

Coral adders prey on:

small lizards;
amphibians;
large insects;
birds;
rodents

This type of reptile can survive without food long time. But snakes drink often, and after 3-5 days they go down to the water.

Reproduction of coral adder

Coral adders belong to the oviparous species of snakes. After hibernation, mating season begins. During this period, the female secretes pheromones - odorous substances, the smell of which attracts a huge number of males. They intertwine with their talami, forming a huge moving ball.

At the end of summer, the female usually lays 2-3 eggs in the nest. It is found in a mound of forest floor or in a burrow. The female protects the eggs from temperature fluctuations during the day and night, warming them with her body heat if necessary. During the breeding season, coral adders behave extremely aggressively - they reflexively display defensive reactions.

Keeping a coral adder in captivity

The coral adder attracts reptile lovers with its unusual skin coloration. Keeping a poisonous snake requires certain knowledge and skills. It is better to build a terrarium with a coral adder in a specially equipped room. An illuminated area is suitable for this, where the terrarium is installed close to the wall. Special attention pay attention to the cracks, which are carefully covered. The lighting is set to constant, since this type of snake is nocturnal and navigates in the dark better than humans.

The room and terrarium must be locked. Snakes are carried with special clamps or tongs, which reduce mobility. Food is served on hooks of various sizes. It is also necessary to purchase serum against the venom of this snake. Coral adders are fed crickets, earthworms, Madagascar cockroaches, and mice.

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