Volume 1

Natural history of Victoria : prodromus of the zoology of Victoria; or figures and descriptions of the living species of all classes of the Victorian indigenous animals / by Frederick McCoy.

  • Frederick McCoy
Date:
[1885-90]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Natural history of Victoria : prodromus of the zoology of Victoria; or figures and descriptions of the living species of all classes of the Victorian indigenous animals / by Frederick McCoy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    This species was long supposed to be confined to Tasmania, where it is very abundant; and my first announcement* of its occurrence on the mainland near Melbourne was supposed by sub- sequent writers on the subject in New South Wales and London to be erroneous ; these writers, however, now (without referring to their former criticisms) quote it as an undoubted Victorian species. In point of fact, it is very common about Prahran, Elsternwick, and other south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, but its range seems very restricted, specimens not having yet been recorded from the north or western parts of the colony. The numerous young are brought forth in December and January. The blackish examples, especially if the reddish color of the side scales and edges of ventrals is distinct, are frequently mistaken for the Black Snake ; but the scales on the under side of the tail being only in a single row throughout, and there being one instead of two nasal plates, easily distinguish them. A large number of the dangerous cases of snake-bites near Melbourne are due to this species, which for its size is extremely venomous. One remarkable case excited much, attention a few years ago, when a station-master named Brown, on the Hobson’s Bay Railway at Elsternwick, was bitten by a small individual of this species, which some workmen imagined they had killed, and after carrying it some distance hanging across a stick, threw it upon the platform, when Brown, taking it up, received a small wound in the finger, and shortly showed the usual symptoms of fatal snake- poisoning. In spite of the ordinary remedies, of excision of the bitten part, rubbing ammonia on the wound, ligatures, and sucking the wound, doses of brandy, galvanism, and being walked about by assistants, he was so completely at the point of death that the two surgeons attending him gave him up, his sight being gone, his lower extremities completely paralysed, having dilated pupils, swollen neck and face, and coma, from which he could not be roused. The medical attendants, explaining to his friends that they could do no more, and that his death might be looked for in a few minutes, proposed to try what was then considered the dangerous remedy * “ Recent Zoology and Palaeontology of Victoria,” International Exhibition Essays, Mel- bourne, 1866-7. [ § ]
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