100 BRITISH SERPENTS. 



for the legitimate purposes of tongues — that is, either 

 for feeding purposes or as an instrument of tactile 

 sensibility. To show how unreliable are the snake- 

 stories that are told in some country districts, the 

 following may be mentioned. I was snake -hunting 

 with my friend F. G. Aflalo in July 1900, and we had 

 as a guide a man who was going to show us the haunt 

 of some adders. He was quite right as far as the 

 adders being there was concerned, but en route he told 

 us of an adder in this spot that had once " stung " him, 

 and the sting — i.e., the tongue — went through his 

 leggings ! We felt that to attempt to convince him 

 that the adder's tongue was probably more innocent 

 than his own would only result in his taking no further 

 interest in the day's work, besides the total loss of our 

 reputations in his eyes, so we listened with all due 

 respect to this and other terrible tales. 



The windpipe is long and narrow, ending in the 

 simple sac-like lung. By an interesting anatomical 

 arrangement the pipe can be protruded out of the 

 mouth during the swallowing of some particularly 

 difficult morsel, at which time the appearance of the 

 reptile is very peculiar. This arrangement is also 

 seen in other snakes. 



(Esophagus or gullet. — From what was said about 

 the food of the adder it must be quite evident that 

 the gullet is a very capacious organ, capable of con- 

 siderable distension. So indeed it is. In an adder 24 

 inches long the average length of the gullet is 9 inches, 



