Читать книгу Venoms: Venomous Animals and Antivenomous Serum-therapeutics - A. Calmette - Страница 38

Maxillary bones projecting considerably beyond the palatines, with a pair of large poison-fangs; no other maxillary teeth. Head not distinct from neck; eyes of moderate size, with round pupils; nostril between two nasal shields and an internasal. Body cylindrical; scales oblique, keeled, in 19 rows; ventrals rounded. Tail moderate; subcaudal scales in 2 rows.

S. hæmachates (The Spitting Snake, or Ring Hals Slang).—This snake, which is about 700 millimetres in length, is of a bluish-brown colour, with numerous narrow, undulating and denticulate cross-bands of yellow or yellowish-white. The throat is black or dark red; the belly grey.

It is met with throughout West, East, and South Africa, as far as the Cape of Good Hope, where it is very common. It lives among bushes in sandy places, where the ground is full of the holes of rats, moles, and small rodents, upon which it feeds. It is very active and exhibits great ferocity.

Natives at the Cape declare that this snake is able to project its venom to a distance of more than a yard, especially if the wind is blowing in the same direction, and that, if the poison happens to enter the eye, the inflammation that results therefrom often leads to loss of sight (Smith).

As to this, a very definite statement is given by Bavay,4 on the authority of Le Naour:—

“While hunting in Dahomey,” wrote Le Naour to Bavay, “I thrice met with the snake called the Spitter. On two occasions my dog was struck in both eyes by the liquid projected by the reptile. Immediately (less than two minutes afterwards), symptoms of conjunctivitis manifested themselves, with considerable swelling of the pupils; the conjunctivitis seemed as though it were going to be very serious, and yielded only after twelve days’ treatment with boracic lotion, aided by a few cauterisations with sulphate of copper.

“During my sojourn at Porto-Novo, a store-keeper at the Dogba trading station was a victim of the Spitter. While working at his store he received in his eye a jet of liquid, which produced violent conjunctivitis.”