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A PRIZE FROM THE TIDAL STREAMS OF THE BENGAL SUNDERBUND.

snakes of the snake charmers of India who handle the cobra, it is quite erroneous to think that these reptiles are innocuous. True, their fangs have been broken or roughly cut out with a coarse knife; but a new fang is soon produced, and neglect of precautions in handling the reptiles may result in dangerous accidents.

Should a charmer be bitten, he places a tight ligature above the bitten part, and applies rough surgery with a knife, hot irons, or live coals. It is only natural that the cobra should be an object of veneration and superstitious awe to the Hindoos, in whose mythology it takes a prominent place.

Many natives refuse to destroy a cobra, even if they find it in their houses; and when one has taken up its abode in a hole in the wall, it is fed, protected and conciliated, as though to provoke or injure the reptile would invoke misfortune on both house and family.

The hamadryad is India's biggest venomous snake. It is found nearly fourteen feet in length, and worse still is said to be quite aggressive; its gold colored

virus is quite equal in deadly effect to that of the cobra. It takes readily to the water. Here is a story told by an intelligent old Burman: "One day," he says, "I stumbled upon a nest of hamadryads, and ran for my life. The old female gave chase, but I thought I was safe when I reached a small river and plunged in. But on reaching the opposite bank I saw the furious hamadryad upreared behind me ready to bury his deadly fangs in my nearly naked body. In utter despair I bethought me of my turban, and in an instant plucked it from my head and dashed it at the serpent, which fell upon it like a flash, and for some moments wreaked its vengeance in furious bites, after which, exhausted, it slowly disappeared."

As to the krait, its color is a steel blueblack to chocolate brown, with narrow white cross-streaks, rings, or bars of white. It is common all over India, and although its poison is not so rapid in action as that of the cobra, it is most deadly.

The white man in India finds this horrible creature in his bathroom

and

veranda; in bookcases and cupboards, and other unexpected places, where it has time when discovered to inflict a fatal bite. One night a lady attached to the Viceregal Court in Calcutta found after a night's journey in a palanquin a huge kraït coiled up under her pillow, having been her travelling companion all night!

The fiercest and most aggressive of all the Indian snakes, however, is the echis, a little brownish gray fellow, only twenty inches long, with keeled scales, which set up friction against one another and give to the angry reptile a peculiar rustling sound. A very fierce and vicious viper is this, constantly throwing itself into offensive attitudes, coiling like a spring, and rustling its carinated scales. It does not wait to be attacked, but advances with wide open mouth and long fangs vibrating. Its virus is most deadly and active, and is responsible for a great number of deaths every year.

The hydrophida, or water snakes, are also extremely poisonous. The hinder part of their body and tail is flattened almost like the fin or tail of a fish, and with it they swim with ease and rapidity. With rare exceptions they live in the sea or tidal water, and when thrown up on shore by the surf they are quite helpless and almost blind. They feed upon fish and small aquatic creatures which they pursue and overtake in the sea.

Every visitor to the Bay of Bengal must have watched these agile and beautiful creatures swimming sinuously in the

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DEADLY KRAIT JUST KILLED.

DOCTOR AT PATIENT'S SIDE IN RESPONSE TO A "HURRY CALL."

azure water. These snakes are frequently taken by the Government Surgeons of India for experimental purposes. They are made to prove their venomous character by biting and rapidly killing a fowl.

Scientists are at a loss to conceive of what use the poison can be to these sea snakes. Undoubtedly they kill a great many swimmers and fishermen every year, as well as harmless foot passengers

on the sea shore, or careless people who handle them when taken out of nets.

A country so rich in poisonous reptiles is not a cheerful place of residence for civilized people, nor can children be safely reared in it. Quite a common episode is the following, taken from a private letter written by the wife of an indigo planter near Darjeeling to a friend in Chicago:

"I was alarmed the other day by my maid rushing into my dressing room and telling me

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a big cobra was in the drawing room. I snatched up a revolver and ran in, only to see the creature disappearing fast.

"I followed it out into our lovely tropic garden, but it vanished into a hole. I knew unless I could destroy it in some way it would come back into the house. I therefore sent Djala into my bedroom for the handmirror, and with this I cast the sun's rays into the hole, only to see the glistening scales of the most poisonous reptile on earth.

"I shot into the hole again and again, and presently pulled the cobra out with a pair of garden shears, simultaneously jerking him into the compound I knew that where one cobra is found there would be others. Using the mirror again, I saw another reptile wrig

VICTIM OF A REPTILE'S DEADLY BITE.

gling. Their tenacity of life will be seen when I tell you that on fishing him out I found several shot holes in his body, yet he was still fighting vigorously. One cobra measured 5 feet 7 inches, and the other 6 feet 2 inches. The pair of them. had evidently been living for months

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SLAYERS OF A HAMADRYAD CARRYING BODY TO GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR FOR HEAD MONEY.

among our flower pots, which were tended daily within three yards of John's study door!"

Every missionary and trader knows the tragedy of daily life in India through these poisonous snakes. Time and again. some poor fainting creature is brought to the white man's door with fluttering heart and eyes dim and closed. Usually in such cases liquid ammonia is sprayed up the nostrils; the set teeth are pried open, and the fang-wounds-usually in the foot-opened up and treated with "poison killer." The veins begin to get hard and ropey; and the patient's legs and arms have to be violently moved back and forth, as with a drowning person, in

order to facilitate breathing, which becomes most labored.

Recent scientific investigation in Berlin and Paris, as well as in the Liverpool School of Tropic Medicine, give grounds for hope that the frightful mortality from snake bite in India will soon drop to one-half its present terrible proportions. Unfortunately the natives accept the snakes as inevitable, and never wear any kind of protection on their feet or legs. Moreover, they secretly oppose the killing of these reptiles, considering that the "genius of evil" is embodied in the cobra, and that therefore becoming deference must be paid to this most dreaded of all the snakes of India.

The City Lights

The stars of heaven are paler than the lights
That gleam beside them sixteen stories high;
Outlined against the blackness of the sky,
Tall buildings glimmer through the frosty nights.
The stars of heaven in stately silence move

Beyond the circle of the window-gleams;
But, dazzled by the fitful lower beams,

I think not of the light that shines above.

But when speed upon the outbound train,

The lights of earth, mist-hidden, fade away; And quietly the stars resume their sway, And shine in peace above the world again.

-ANNA LOUISE STRONG in The Song of the City,

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Engine Built for Speed practice. The wide firebox extending

IN

N the photograph is depicted an express passenger locomotive, the most interesting one exhibited at the recent national Nüremberg (Germany) show, and just now put to service on the Nüremberg-Munchen division of the Bavarian State Railroads. This engine, which embodies several interesting features, is capable of running at a speed of over ninety-three miles an hour with a load of 180 tons. One of the most noticeable of its features is the apparent lightness of the driving wheels, the very small counterbalance that is used, and the location of the same in the main wheels, where it is placed about 120 degrees back of the crank. The high and low-pressure cranks on the same side of the engine are opposite each other. The engine is provided with wind-breaking plows at the front; the frames are of the American bar type at the front, with a slab at the back over the rear truck, in which there is but little variation from the American

well out over the frames with the trucks set well to the rear lends itself to the use of the outside ashpan that is seen in the illustration.

The engine has the following leading dimensions: weight (empty), 72.5 tons; weight (running order), 80 tons; boiler pressure, 210 pounds; diameter of high pressure cylinders, 16.14 inches; diameter of low pressure cylinders, 24 inches; piston stroke, 25.20 inches; diameter of driving wheels, 86.61 inches; truck wheels, 39.61 inches; tractive power, 5 tons; heating surface, firebox, 177.54 square feet; heating surface, tubes, 2.141.24 square feet; heating surface, superheater, 403.50 square feet; total heating surface, 2722.28 square feet; weight of tender (empty) 19.5 tons, water capacity 6.865 gallons; fuel space, 7 tons; total length of engine, 46 feet; maximum height of engine, 15 feet 3 inches; greatest breadth of engine, 10 feet 4 inches.

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NEW TYPE OF LOCOMOTIVE RECENTLY INSTALLED ON BAVARIAN STATE RAILROADS.

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