Snakes: curiosities and wonders of serpent life . ing thing about it. Dr. Stradling had seen a frogsimilarly snapping at the tongue of a snake, and thinks thatone of the chief uses of the mysterious little organ is toattract insectivorous animals. My own observations provethe tongue to be a snccessfid lure, which may go a good waytowards explaining fascination ; but whether an intentional ^ Papers on the Ophidians in the Dublin University Magazine, January1876 et seq. SERPENT WORSHIP, CHARMING; ETC. 531 lure, any more than an intentional intimidation, as discussedin chap, v., I hesitate to aff
Snakes: curiosities and wonders of serpent life . ing thing about it. Dr. Stradling had seen a frogsimilarly snapping at the tongue of a snake, and thinks thatone of the chief uses of the mysterious little organ is toattract insectivorous animals. My own observations provethe tongue to be a snccessfid lure, which may go a good waytowards explaining fascination ; but whether an intentional ^ Papers on the Ophidians in the Dublin University Magazine, January1876 et seq. SERPENT WORSHIP, CHARMING; ETC. 531 lure, any more than an intentional intimidation, as discussedin chap, v., I hesitate to affirm. Fascination, then, may be sometimes imputed to curi-osity, sometimes to an anticipated morsel. It may partakeof fear, or i-t may be an involuntary approach ; it may bethe struggles of a poisoned creature unable to get away, orthe maternal anxieties of a bird or small mammal whoseoffspring has fallen a victim to the snake. Divesting itof all poetry or magic, it will admit of several matter-of-fact, albeit sometimes tragic explanations. >^. CHAPTER XXIX. THE VENOMS AND THEIR REMEDIES, ON a subject which has baffled research in all ages, endeavour to discover an antidote for snakevenom, it scarcely becomes me to speak. Yet, as in theforegoing chapters, I may at least venture to lay beforemy readers some general account of the various remedies usedin snake regions, and, for the benefit of residents in thosecountries, describe the most approved means of treatingthe bites of venomous serpents. Information of this kindwill not, I trust, be wholly useless. First, it may be as well to impressively repeat what hasbeen already constantly affirmed by all our scientificexperimentalists on snake venoms, that as yet no antidote tothem has been fonnd^ Remedies there are in abundance ;and it is just as great an error to believe that all snake venomis incurable— that a bitten person must necessarily die—as that there are countless antidotes, as persons broadlyand loosely
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