There were a number of us in the room, including two or three photographers.  The doctor first put on the table a non-poisonous but very vicious and truculent colubrine snake.  It struck right and left at us.  Then the doctor picked it up, opened its mouth, and showed that it had no fangs, and handed it to me.  I also opened its mouth and examined its teeth, and then put it down, whereupon, its temper having been much ruffled, it struck violently at me two or three times.  In its action and temper this snake was quite as vicious as the most irritable poisonous snakes.  Yet it is entirely harmless.  One of the innumerable mysteries of nature which are at present absolutely insoluble is why some snakes should be so vicious and others absolutely placid and good-tempered.

After removing the vicious harmless snake, the doctor warned us to get away from the table, and his attendant put on it, in succession, a very big lachecis—­of the kind called bushmaster—­and a big rattlesnake.  Each coiled menacingly, a formidable brute ready to attack anything that approached.  Then the attendant adroitly dropped his iron crook on the neck of each in succession, seized it right behind the head, and held it toward the doctor.  The snake’s mouth was in each case wide open, and the great fangs erect and very evident.  It would not have been possible to have held an African ring-necked cobra in such fashion, because the ring-neck would have ejected its venom through the fangs into the eyes of the onlookers.  There was no danger in this case, and the doctor inserted a shallow glass saucer into the mouth of the snake behind the fangs, permitted it to eject its poison, and then himself squeezed out the remaining poison from the poison-bags through the fangs.  From the big lachecis came a large quantity of yellow venom, a liquid which speedily crystallized into a number of minute crystals.  The rattlesnake yielded a much less quantity of white venom, which the doctor assured us was far more active than the yellow lachecis venom.  Then each snake was returned to its box unharmed.

After this the doctor took out of a box and presented to me a fine, handsome, nearly black snake, an individual of the species called the mussurama.  This is in my eyes perhaps the most interesting serpent in the world.  It is a big snake, four or five feet long, sometimes even longer, nearly black, lighter below, with a friendly, placid temper.  It lives exclusively on other snakes, and is completely immune to the poison of the lachecis and rattlesnake groups, which contain all the really dangerous snakes of America.  Doctor Brazil told me that he had conducted many experiments with this interesting snake.  It is not very common, and prefers wet places in which to live.  It lays eggs, and the female remains coiled above the eggs, the object being apparently not to warm them, but to prevent too great evaporation.  It will not eat when moulting, nor in cold weather.  Otherwise it will eat a small snake every five or six days, or a big one every fortnight.