I04 SNAKES, 



And if sensationalism seem to demand still more forcible 

 language, as, for instance, in describing an injury or an 

 escape, our journalist tells us of the 'forked tongue darting 

 defiance.' 'The wicked-looking serpent tongue protruded 

 with lightning-like swiftness.' 'To see the reptile run its 

 devilish tongue out at you.' ' Its horrid lancinating tongue 

 protruded,' etc. These are only a few of such sentences 

 copied verbatim, but they are unfortunately too common, 

 even with the better-informed writers. 



The idea of a snake being sufficiently intelligent, reason- 

 ing, and reflective to deliberately ' run its tongue out at 

 you,' as if conscious of its own moral power and your moral 

 weakness, is too ludicrous. If the snake could truly inflict 

 injury with those soft, flexible, delicate filaments, — if it 

 could, with one rapid touch, insert poison, as the tall talker 

 at the Zoological Gardens affirmed, the threatening quiver 

 could only be in friendly warning. Let the poor reptile 

 at least be thanked for that. 



Our lamented friend, Frank Buckland, fell into the same 

 error (or inadvertency, since he quite understood that the 

 tongue could do no harm) when he wrote thus of the 

 tongue in his Cttriosities of Natural History : — * The tongue 

 is generally protruded in order to intimidate the bystanders;' 

 and, ' The tongue acts as a sort of intimidation to its aggres- 

 sors ; ' thus giving the snake the credit of a waggish sort 

 of intelligence, far more complimentary to the reptile than 

 to the bystander. In imagination we behold a solemn 

 Convention of snakes, held in ages long ago, and 

 a resolution to this effect passed unanimously : — ' Now 

 these poor ignorant mortals think we can kill them 



