DEADLIEST SNAKE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23767, 21 September 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

DEADLIEST SNAKE

TWO young recruits of the United States Army, William E. Spahr and James L. Pursley unwittingly performed a dangerous feat in killing a bushmaster —the deadliest snake in * the American tropics—at a battery position in the jungles near Madden Dam recently, according to The Panama Coast Artillery News. Out at Night Raymond Ditmars and several assistants once spent weeks in this region in a vain search for a bushmaster. This snake strikes with lightning speed, and unless anti-venom is administered soon afterward the bita proves fatal. Spahr and Pursley made their kill at night by flashlight with a bolo, a broadbladed knife less than three feet long. They reported they killed a "boa" constrictor about seven feet long to Sergeant William Monroe, who once worked with , the late Dr. Douglas

It Strikes Like Lightning

Mnrch, who died at Panama City from a bushmaster bite. When Monroe saw their "boa," he said: "Attacking a bushmaster that size with only a bolo is something like attacking a tiger with a pocket knife."