MISCELLANY. 



765 



eral way, that these two branches of the 

 Aryan stem were united during a great part 

 of their history. It was left, however, to 

 ancient law to solve the problem with 

 more completeness, and to determine more 

 clearly the place of Ireland in the great ag- 

 gregate of Aryan nations. The preface to 

 the third volume of the recently-published 

 Irish " Brehon Tracts " gives a clear account 

 of the development of the ancient laws of 

 Ireland, of their relation with kindred Aryan 

 usages, and of the social life that is reflected 

 in them. Sir Henry Maine, too, has demon- 

 strated that the native laws of Ireland are 

 a mass of archaic Aryan customs. " He has 

 shown that the old forms of Irish life, which 

 he has reconstructed with marvelous skill, 

 have a most striking and curious analogy 

 to those of older races of Aryan descent, in 

 various stages of growth and progress ; and 

 he has thus established the true inference, 

 that the supposed barbarism of the Irish 

 people is simply a conceit of undiscerning 

 ignorance ; that we may regard Ireland as a 

 plant, of which the development has been 

 checked and arrested, but that she is of the 

 same stock as ourselves ; and that we must 

 seek the causes of her misfortunes in cir- 

 cumstances independent of race." 



A Snake-eating Snake^ One of the re- 

 cent accessions to the population of the 

 London Zoological Gardens is a specimen 

 of the Ophiophagus elaps, the snake-eating 

 snake. The new-comer has been described 

 by Frank Buckland, who represents him as 

 a very formidable type of ophidian. In 

 length he measures over seven feet ; circum- 

 ference about equal to the thickness of a 

 man's wrist. His virus is as deadly as that 

 of the cobra, and he is, moreover, a regular 

 athlete among snakes. His head is very 

 lizard-like and harmless-looking not flat 

 and triangular as is the head of the puff- 

 adder, the rattlesnake, or the viper. He has 

 an intelligent eye. Like the cobra, he has 

 a hood which he can expand when angry, 

 and his body is ornamented with very pret- 

 ty stripes. His mode of attack is peculiar: 

 he glides after you with the swiftness of a 

 hawk after a bird, and when he gets up to 

 his enemy bites him and retires. He is, there- 

 fore, more to be feared than the lion, the 

 elephant, or the boa-constrictor ; one slight 



prick, quick as an arrow, of the poison- 

 fang, and the life of the man ebbs out of a 

 minute hole in the skin that would barely 

 admit a needle's point. On his arrival at 

 the gardens the Ojjhiophagus was treated to 

 a live English snake, which he instantly 

 seized and swallowed head foremost. 



Mr. Buckland ascribes to Fayrer the 

 credit of having given " the only correct ac- 

 count of this creature's habits, especially 

 that of his eating other snakes." But 

 herein he is corrected by Surgeon-General 

 Stewart, who states, in Science Gossip, that 

 Ophiophagus elaps was discovered by Dr. 

 Theodore Cantor, of the Bengal Medical Ser- 

 vice, who described the animal and its habits 

 more than thirty years ago under the name 

 oi Hamadryas ophiophagus in the Journal 

 of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Surgeon 

 Stewart gives some of his own recollections 

 of the behavior of this serpent, while he ob- 

 served it in company with Dr. Cantor. He 

 says that it devours rats, mice, and small 

 birds. Once Cantor offered a bandicoot to 

 a Hamadryas. The former showed fight, 

 and the latter seemed to be afraid, so the 

 bandicoot was knocked on the head, and so 

 probably the life of the snake was saved. 



Prevention of the Effects of Bee-Stlng. 



-From a letter in the British Bee Journal, 

 by Mr. G, Walker, it appears that immunity 

 from the pain and other injurious effects of 

 the sting of the bee may be gained by inoc- 

 ulation with the virus of that insect. Mr. 

 Walker allowed a bee to sting him upon 

 the wrist, taking care that he received the 

 largest amount of poison, by preventing 

 the bee from going away at once ; then he 

 let the poison-bag work, which it does for 

 some time after being separated from the 

 bee. The first day he was stung twice. The 

 effect was rather severe cutaneous erysipe- 

 las, disorder of the motor nerve, with the 

 usual signs of inflammation. A few days 

 having elapsed, and the symptoms having 

 subsided, he caused himself to be stung 

 again three times in quick succession. The 

 attack of erysipelas was on this occasion 

 not nearly so severe, still a stinging sensa- 

 tion ran up to the shoulder, and a lymphat- 

 ic gland behind the ear increased consid- 

 erably in size, the poison being taken up by 

 the lymphatic system. A few days subse- 



