152 OPHIDIA. 



seconds. This air, when it has performed its 

 office, and has been deprived of its oxygen, is ex- 

 pelled in the same manner, but by an inverse 

 mechanism, which is entirely due to the action of 

 the muscles which tend to approximate the ribs 

 to each other. When it is expelled rather briskly, 

 a sort of vibration or hissing is heard." 



The learned zoologists just cited have given 

 some interesting illustrations of the absorbent 

 powers of the intestines of serpents. Their fsecal 

 evacuations affiDrd a singular proof of this ; for 

 they present, as it were, the dry extract of the 

 animal swallowed, in an entire state ; the parts 

 that could not be dissolved remaining unaltered, 

 and absolutely in the same situation that they 

 occu^Died in the carcase of the animal before it 

 had passed through the whole length of the di- 

 gestive tube. If, for instance, a rat has imder- 

 gone this process, one may recognise in the dry 

 and shapeless mass, the place occupied by the 

 muzzle of the animal, the long whiskers of its 

 cheeks, the down which covered the delicate car- 

 tilages of its ears, the hairs of various lengths 

 and colours which correspond with those of the 

 back, the belly, and above all, the tail; and finally, 

 even the claws, which remain in their pristine state 

 of integrity. All that was flesh or soft matter in 

 the body has been completely absorbed ; the 

 earthy salt, nevertheless, which gave, by means of 

 its union with the gelatine, consistence to the 

 bones, still indicates by its presence, and espe- 

 cially by its colour, the place they occupied. 

 Dissolution, compression, and absorption, have 

 done their work upon this desiccated mass, which 

 still, however, contains the elements of nourish- 



