The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-05-08
SNAKES OF THE SEA.
VENOMOUS SERPENTS WHICH
 HAUNT

| VarIeties-Beautlful But Deadly
 Power of the TaiI-Gives a Fatal
 Blte--The Victim Suffers Poison
 Takes-Every Bite Mortai-Haunts of
 the RcptIIe-nunt Like Hounds.
 When the steamship Osingwold arriV- l ed recently in the United States and | Captain Roberts reported that about 43 | miles southwest from Ceylon his vessel
 had steamed for two hours through
 masses of snakes, probably most per sons suspected the skipper of having l drawn a very long bow, says the Chl- l cago Record Herald. But the captain l had told only the truth and now that, | owing to our new possessions, more anu more ships will ply the water Of the ln- ] dian and China seas the world Will l learn many new and startling things about feature of animal life that nth 1 erto has been known practically to only ! a few.
 The first scientific and official report
 that reached the United states Of the
 existence of great snakes in numbers so | vast as to challenge credulity was
 made two years ago by pr. George F.. 1 Becker of the United States Geological l Survey. who saw a wonderful spectacle
 while passing through the Sea of Jolo, | Between Cebu and Jolo the ship pass ! ed through sea snakes for 100 miles pr. l Becker computes that there were at 1 least 5000 of them to each square mile 1 and that if the "school' of serpents was 1 as broad IS it was long there must have i been 50,00O000 of them. In this case, 1 as in the case of the Osingwold, the sea- | literally and exactly speaking, was alive l with them. Wherever the eye might | look snakes were swimming with gra ce" ful convolutions, with heads and long l thin necks thrust far out of the water 1 in true ea-serpent style. The Ostng- ! wolds master computes that the area
 covered by the snakes that he saw was 1 fully IA miles long and A miles wide.
 As in the case of the creatures seen by
 Dr. Becker, they seemed entirely fear
 less, and barly swan out of the track
 of the ship in time to escape death from
 the bow or the screw. In fact, the ] Osngwold killed many of them
 This utter fearlessness is distin- 1 gushing characteristic of the SC snake
 and 1t adds no little to the danger that
 is to be apprehended from them, for 1t
 often leads them for it often leads 1 them to attack fishermen or swimmers
 and even to climb up the anchor chains ! and through the hawser holes of vessels 1 and to attack the crews. And as the l bite of every one of the 30 known vari-
 cities is absolutely fatal there is no little 1 fear felt of them in the great ocean ] spaces that are inhabited by them l There are 50 known varieties of these | dreaded creatures, all cassifised under | the general title of Thanatophidia, None ! of them is able to live anywhere except
 in ocean water Every variety and sub
 variety is as poisonous as the cobra or the bushmaster of Africa. Indeed, with , the exception of these two land ser pents there is no snake on dry land ! that kills so swiftly and so terrible as | do the seas makes, Owing to their fatal | weapons and their ease and celerity of l swimming there are practically no enc | mics that destroy enough of them to make any impression on their numbers. l They are as beautiful as they are | deadly, and Coleridge made no misuse of poetic license when he made his | Ancient Mariner say.
 Beyond the shadow of the ship
 | I watched the water snakes.
 | They moved in tracks of shining white,
 And when they reared the elisb light
 Fell off in horny flakes.
 l Within the shadow of the ship
 | I watched their rich attire;
 | Blue glossy green and velvet black, | They coiled and swan, and every track
 Was a flash of golden fire.
 l No snake on land except the coral, | grass and carpet snake Is clad so beau- tifully as are almost all the Thanoto- phida, Banded, striped, speckled, blotched, green, olive, yellow, blue and
 black, they seem the most beautiful | things that the eye can hope to see as one watches them swimming and coil
 ing" far below the surface in the glori-
 ous transparence of the deep blue ln- dian ocean. No man who has not seen them can form even q conception of 1 their grace and agility. When they are swimming at an ordinary rate of speed | they appear to undulate all over. They do not wind through the water as does an eel. Their method of progression re- minds the hcholder of the locomotion of / caterpillar, with the difference that it is far more graceful and that as their
 bodies move and twist, colors play all
 over them, as they do on the back and sides of dolphins. But when they dash
 at prey full speed they move like an ar
 row, with their heads and necks thrust | straight before them. If they are l swimming under the surface, or if they are darting along the top of the water with their heads elevated just far
 enough to clear the crests of the waves 1 When they are racing along thus their
 sole means of locomotion in their broad
 paddle-shaped tail, which is peculiar to
 all the sea snakes, and forms the only
 striking difference between them and the ordinary terrestrial serpent.
 This paddle is used like steamers screw, and has immense power. Bent sideways, it will stop the snake in- | stantly as if the creature had anchored | suddenly. Indeed when dozing or rest ing over reefs and in the sea caves that are common in the coral banks they
 hold fast to the rocks or bottom wit h