Warning: If you like snakes, please don’t read.
From Carl Lumholtz’s Among Cannibals (1889):
During my sojourn in Mackay [Queensland] my dog, a fine Gordon setter, was exposed to great danger at a station near the town. She suddenly stopped in the high grass, and as I cautiously drew near I discovered in front of her a splendid specimen of the [red-bellied] black snake (Pseudechis), whose head had assumed the flat form which is peculiar to venomous snakes when they become excited. The hot weather had made it still more angry. With the head slightly raised from the ground, it lay just ready to give my dog a fatal bite if the latter made the slightest motion. I hastily called the dog back, broke off a branch from a tree, and killed the treacherous enemy, the most venomous snake of Australia. It was glistening black with a reddish belly, and longer than myself when I held it up (64-65).
Yeah. He killed the red-bellied black snake.
Because the dog was a pointer, I bet it could have been called off before the snake struck it. I wouldn’t be so sure that the snake would strike. Venom is expensive for the snake to produce, and this particular species, although quite venomous, is known for being shy and retiring.
He could have called the dog off before it was bitten.
***
This is what a red-bellied black snake looks like:
They will flatten out the ribbing around their heads like cobras do, but they don’t have extensive hoods like their better known cousins:
The artist who drew the depiction in the Lumholtz book really didn’t get it right.
Of course, because it’s very unlikely that anyone in Europe would have seen one alive!
