Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1883 — The King of Asps. [ARTICLE]

The King of Asps.

A new snake, called the echis 6arinata, which is the first specimen of its -race seen in England, and of which we have no specimen here, is attracting crowds to the Regent’s Park, London. It is about a foot and a half long, and the color is dingy gray. It is the deadliest of created things, for it carries in its tiny head the secret of destroying life with the sudden rapidity of lightning and the concentrated agony of all poisons. This king of the asps is more dangerous than the cobra or the korait, for it does not turn and run like the one, or flash into concealment like the other, but with fearless pluck gives fight, and pitches its eighteen inches of length against any comer. A stroke of a stick will break it in two, Or a stone will smash it, but such is its venomous malignity that it will challenge attack by every device in its power, staking its own life on the mere chance of its adversary coming within the little circle of its reach. The radius of that circle Is twelve inches, but within it at any point lies certain death, and in the bare hope of hand or foot trespassing within its -reach the echis throws its body into a figure-of-eight coil, and, attracting attention by rubbing its loops together, which, from the roughness of the scales (hence the epithet carin ata), makes a rustling sound, erects its head in the center and awaits attack. No one having once encountered this terrible little creature can ever forget its truculent aspect when aroused; its eagerly aggressive air; its restless coils, which, in constant motion one over another and rustling ominously all the time, bring it nearer and nearer to.the object of its fury; its eye, mrtignant ejren beyond those of other vipers, and then the inconceivable rapidity of its stroke. The echis does not wait to strike until it is within striking distance, but vents its malice in repeatedly darting at nothing, hoping to aggravate its antagonist into coming to closer quarters, or more probably as a mere expression of its own incontrollable viciousness.