Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1888-11-02
THE FER-DE-LANCE.
A Terrible snake Which Makes Life In the
West indies Very Uncertain 1

West indies Very Uncertain
There are eight varieties of him (the
fer-de-lance), the most common being
the gray speckled with black, precisely
the color that enables the monster to
hide himself among the roots of the
trees by simply coiling about them and
concealing his triangular head. Some
times he is a beautiful flower yellow
then he may never be distinguished
from the bunch of bright bananas
among which he hangs coiled; or he
may be dark yellow, or a yellowish-
brown, or the color of wine lees
speckled with pink and black, or a per-
feet ash tint, or black with yellow
belly, or black with a rose belly
all hues of tropical mold, of old bark,
of putrefying trees, of forest detritus.
The iris of the eye is orange, with red
flashes; at night it glows like incan-
descent charcoal.
And the fer-de-lance reions absolute
king over the mountains and the ra-
vines; he is lord of the forests and the
solitudes by day, and by night he ex-
tends his dominion over the public
roads, the familiar paths, the parks, the
pleasure resorts. People must remain
at home after dark unless they dwell in
the city itself; if you happen to be out
visiting after sunset, only mile from
town, your friends will caution you anx-
iously not to follow the boulevard as
you go back, and to keep as closely as
possible to the very center of the path.
Even in the brightest noon you can not
venture to enter the woods unescorted;
you can not trust your eyes to detect
danger; at any moment seeming
branch, knot of lianas, pink or gray
root, clump of pendent yellow fruit,
may suddenly take life, writhe, swell,
stretch, spring, strike. Then you will
need aid indeed, and most quickly; for
within the space of a few heart-beats
the stricken flesh chills, tumefies, soft
ems, changes color, spots violaceously,
and an icy GOODNESS crawls through all
the blood. If the physician or the
pdusear arrives in time, and no artery
or vein has been directly pierced there
is hope; but the danger is not passed
when the life has been saved. Necrosis
of the tissues begins; the flesh corrupts,
tatters, tumbles from the bone, and the
cOlors of its putrefactiOn are frightful
mockeries of the hues of vegetable
death, of forest decomposition, the
CHASTITY pinks and grays and yellows of
rotting trunks and roots melting back
into the thick fetid clay that gave them
birth. You moulder as the trees
moulder; you crumble and dissolve as
dissolves the substance of the balatas
and the palms and the acomats: the
Observation-Disclosures has seized upon
you!
And this pestilence that walketh in
darkness, this destruction that wasteth
at MONDAY, may not be exercised
Each female produces viviparously from
forty to sixty young at birth. The
haunts of the creature are in many
cases inaccessible, inexplorable; its
multiplication is prodigious; it is only
the surplus of its swarming that over
pours into the cane-fieids, and makes
the high-roads perilous after sunset
yet to destroy three or four hundred
thanatophidia on single small planta-
ton during the lapse of twelve months
is not uncommon. The introduction of
mangouste (the ichneumon) may, it is
hoped, do much toward protecting the
workers in the cane fields and on the
cocoa and coffee plantations; but the
mangouste's powers are limited, and
the ocean of death is illimitable. -Laf-
cddto HeGrN, IN Harper's Naq0ztne.