Shuoshe 說蛇

Shuoshe 說蛇 is a book on snakes written during the Qing period 清 (1644-1912) by Zhao Biaozhao 趙彪詔 (1687–1770), courtesy name Baosan 豹三, from Wujin 武進, Jiangsu. Nothing is known about his life.

The book Shuoshe assembles quotations about snakes from all types of old literature. The collection is divided into three parts, namely Shepu 蛇譜, Sheshi 蛇事, and Zaji 雜紀. The first part gives information about the regions in south China where snakes live. The information is partially derived from Chen Ding's 陳鼎 (b. 1650) Shepu 蛇譜. Different species are described in detail, such as the gold-coloured huanglian she 黃連蛇 which lives in Yazhou 雅州, Sichuan, and lives of the Chinese goldthread (huanglian 黃連, Coptis chinensis). It is thick like a forefinger, has a length of one foot, lives in bamboo tubes, and there is no antidote against its poison. The cat snake maoshe 貓蛇 was believed to utter sounds like the mewing of a cat. The "snake" leigongma 雷公馬 (today the term for a kind of leguan) from the region of Leizhou 雷州, Guangdong, is not poisonous and can be eaten. The second part of the book assembles statements on snakes from various literary sources and information that the author gathered from interviews. Some statements in this part are unreliable and belong to the world of fiction. The last part gathers miscellaneous supplementary information.

The text is found in the series Zhaodai congshu 昭代叢書 and Congshu jicheng xubian 叢書集成續編.