io8 SNAKES. 



the casual reader. To satisfy a passing interest, we turn 

 to these, to the books they quote, and next to encyclo- 

 pedias, and not to scientific text-books, where we are 

 beset by technicalities which are in themselves a study 

 to be first mastered. Otherwise, from scientific works a 

 good deal might have been learned long ago about this 

 exceedingly wonderful organ, the tongue of a snake. 



It is evident, however, that a good many of our drawing- 

 room naturalists have not thought it necessary to first devote 

 themselves to the scientific study of a snake's tongue before 

 they ventured to write about it ; therefore they remained 

 only partially enlightened. To such an extent has the 

 supposed ' lubrication ' prevailed, that ophiologists of the 

 day have not thought it too trivial to speak of and to 

 refute. The same visitors to the Zoological Gardens who 

 tell their friends or children to look at the snake's 'sting,' 

 also wait to ' see the snake lick the rabbit all over before it 

 begins to swallow it.' 



Were a painter to set to work to paint a house, or a 

 mason to whitewash the ceiling, with a camel's-hair pencil, 

 it would not be a more tedious and impossible process than 

 that of a snake * licking all over with its tongue ' the body 

 of the animal it is about to devour. Illustrations, in order 

 to be as startling as possible, and to feed the educated 

 horror of snakes, often represent a boa or an anaconda coiled 

 round a bull or some other equally large and rough-coated 

 animal, which, as the writer informs us, ' it was seen to lick 

 all over and cover with its mucus.' 



Let the reader reflect a moment, and he will perceive 

 what supply of moisture this degree of lubrication would 



