ed with it, and I
made a second attempt, when I was attacked still more violently, and
perceived the blood trickling down my finger. I then returned into my
room, sucking the wound, till I could draw no more blood. I applied
some spirits of turpentine to it, put on a bandage, and being much
hurried that evening with other business, made no farther inquiry about
it. However, in the night it swelled, and was very painful. In the
morning, I went again into the work-room, when I thought I perceived an
unpleasant, musky smell. On approaching the before-mentioned door, the
stench was intolerable. I again asked the boys, what nasty thing they
had brought into the room, for they were always at play; but they again
denied any knowledge of the cause of the nuisance. A candle was
brought, and I now beheld the origin of all the mischief. About six
inches length of the head and body of a young split-snake hung out of
the key-hole, quite dead; and on taking off the lock, I found the
creature twisted into it, and so much wounded by the turn of the bolt,
in attempting to open the door, that it had died in consequence. It
had intended to enter the room through the key-hole, when I thus
accidentally stopped its progress, and got bitten; and considering the
deadly poison this serpent always infuses into the wound inflicted, I
felt very thankful to God, my Preserver, that, by sucking the infected
blood out of my finger in time, and applying a proper remedy, though
ignorant of the cause of the wound, my life was not endangered. I have
heard and believe, that the bite of every serpent is accompanied, more
or less, by a sensation similar to an electrical shock, as the poison
seems almost instantaneously to affect the whole mass of blood. We
considered also the name of split-snake given to this animal, not so
much as descriptive of its split appearance, as of the singular
sensation its bite occasions, and which I then experienced.

Of other remarkable serpents I will only quote, the _Whip-snake_, which
is green, from four to six feet long, slender, and springs horizontally,
from tree to tree, whence it is also called the _Flying-snake_. The
species, known by the name of the _Double-headed-snake_, has not two
heads, but is equally thick before and behind; and, like some
caterpillars, furnished with a kind of protuberance at its tail, which,
to a superficial observer, may pass for another head. They are of a red
colour, sluggish, and resemble a