he room, under the care of a skilful and impassive assistant,
who handled them with the cool and fearless caution of the doctor
himself. The poisonous ones were taken out by means of a long-handled
steel hook. All that is necessary to do is to insert this under the
snake and lift him off the ground. He is not only unable to escape,
but he is unable to strike, for he cannot strike unless coiled so as
to give himself support and leverage. The table on which the snakes
are laid is fairly large and smooth, differing in no way from an
ordinary table.

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 yielde