Life on A Snake Farm

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 163, 25 June 1928, Page 8

Life on A Snake Farm

Obtaining Serum To Counteract Poison-Bites BNYBODY depressed by the thought that wild life is disappearing from the earth should go to Honduras. Accompanied by his wife, danghter and two friends, D?. Raymond L. Ditmars recently returned from a trip of reconnoitre and observation, and can emphatically report that Honduras is an arcadla of mammals, brilliant, flashing birds and reptiles of ail sorts, including the deadliest. It is impossible to sidestep a series of thrills in a country like this. They pile up and eursound you. A naturalist is overwhelmed by his observations. The object in going to Honduras was to study an important scientific development at Tela, where the United Fruit Company has co-operated in providing clearings and buildings to study the venom of the several radically different kinds of poisonous serpents of Central America. The installation is known as the Antivenin Institute of America, and Is a branch of a scientific organisation in the United States. The Tela station is under the direction of Mr. Thomas Barbour, Director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard University. The plant includes a depressed arena, containing a number of shelter caves. It is sheltered from

DOUGLAS MARCH, in charge of the Honduras “Serpentarium.” the tropic sun by an extensive thatched roof of design similar to the native houses. This long, thatched structure looks harmless enough from the outside, but it contains a swarming population of deadly serpents, dropped in as they are captured on the banana plantations. The sides of the arena are too high for them to ascend, but they glare and hiss at observers who peer over the surrounding rails. it is th« •teru duty ot Douglas D. H. March. D». Earbonr'i Wil toot, to descend into tbs pit every trw days by means of s ladder (which I* tmmediately removed), and, provided with a simple, apparatus ectisletiny; of a long stick with a sm.ali o.noso at tbs end, to capture each serpent. thss permit the maddened reptile to slash Its- fang* through ». piece of parchment tied over a glass, yielding copious jets ot venom. March chats cordially throughout the process to shivering observers who dutch the rail. Thu collected poison. Is used to immunise horses, and thus obtain an antivenins or serum to treat the bites of tropical serpents. The first strains of serum produced from venom oollected at the station have yielded really marvellous results. March is unable to eetch many snakes himself, as the care of his dangerous subjects takes much of bis time, and snakes are not commonly seen in the tropics. They are everywhere, yet have general shelter in the tangle ot luxuriant growth, from which they usually prowl at night. The tropical undergrowth is so thick that it is impossible to work in even a tew feet without cutting one’s way with a machete. There are few permanent trails. A single rainy season brings up such a tangle of new growth that clearings disappear within a few months’ time. To do much travelling In brush even knee high is quite precarious, as legions of ticks and skinburrowing Insects quickly reduce the explorer to a condition of real tor-' ment. A single day of such reconnoitring means an hour at night ot dabbing dozens ot livid spots the size of a shilling with turpentine or some similar substance to kill the embedded pests. The ticks range in size from a pinhead to a small finger nail. They must be killed before they can be removed; if left in fhe skin they cause dangerous, festering sores.

Facing these conditions, expeditions to hunt poisonous snakes are impractical. Bounties are widely offered for the snakes, which are brought in by the natives. The price paid for large specimens of poisonous serpents is 8s each. At that price it would seem that they would come to the stations in large numbers, but such is not the case. In the excitement of capture, many of the snakes are killed, while others are so injured that they die in a new days. New land cuttings, where banana mats are to be planted, yield many snakes, though a good portion of the reptiles soon escape into the tangle ahead of the cutters, who slash their way forward with axe and machete. The banana plantations, when several years old, aro like Jungles, with masses of great dead leaves on the ground, and offer good hunting grounds during clearing times. It is in such places that accidents are most frequent. We had eight large poisonous snakes sent in from such a spot lin a single day, and two or three came in from nearby plantations where the men were at work. The prevailing poisonous serpent tn the area is known as the barba aroarilla, meaning in Spanish the yellow beard. The chin and throat ot this reptile are bright yellow. This is a large ally of the dreaded fet de lance of Martinique and St. Lucia, and the Jararaca ot tropical South America The size it attains in Central America, and the great amount of poison it injects at a bite —nearly a tcasnoonfn! with a large specimen—render it. one of the deadliest reptiles in the world.