was too great to be resisted. He seized the disappearing tail, intending to pull the reptile out and fling it against a tree or stone; but the snake proved to be more than a match for the naturalist. It doubled out of a second hole close to the first and nipped its captor on the top of the forefinger. In a moment his penknife was out and the top of the finger sliced off. "That will do," remarked the enthusiast as he bound up the bleeding wound. It did do, for he proved to be none the worse for the accident.'
Another snake incident might have ended fatally for his wife a long-suffering woman who had much to endure from her husband's pursuits and hobbies. She was in the habit of sitting in the evening at the foot of a staircase that led up to the roof of the house. One day at sunset she was occupying her favourite seat, her attention fully absorbed by her guitar an instrument upon which she played with some proficiency. Suddenly she was startled by the report of a gun close behind her and the sight of a cobra writhing in its death agony a short distance away. Jerdon had observed the snake swaying to the music, and without saying a word to his wife, he fetched his gun and shot it over her shoulder.
He was by nature rash, his pursuit of the study of Nature leading him into situations fraught with danger. He once kept two baby pythons in a box full of straw which was placed in a spare room. He handled them freely, allowing them to glide over his body and wind themselves round his limbs. They grew rapidly, and as they increased in size they naturally increased in strength. When they were six or seven feet in length, Jerdon was playing with them with his customary freedom, when suddenly the house was roused by his shouts for help. A friend ran to the room and found him gasping for breath with a python wound tightly round him. So strong had
