THE TONGUE OF A SNAKE. 117 



number of different publications, misconceptions thus being 

 seriously multiplied. Bad illustrations, even more than 

 printed errors, are responsible, because more persons turn 

 the leaves of a book to look at these, than those who 

 read the page, and a glance either instructs or misinforms 

 the eye. 



The hissing of a snake, as we may here add, is merely an 

 escape or expulsion of air from the lungs, more or less quick 

 or 'loud/ as the reptile is more or less alarmed or angry. 

 Conjecturally, one may suppose this hissing to correspond 

 with the agitated breathing or panting of other animals, or 

 of an excited person. 



In the seventeenth century, when travellers were visiting 

 for the first time the newly-settled colonies in America and 

 Africa, and when the early explorers in various parts of the 

 world were sending home stuffed specimens of animals (in 

 the days when taxidermy, like other sciences, was in its 

 infancy), a stuffed snake was furnished with a huge, broad, 

 fleshy tongue, big enough to crowd its entire mouth, minus 

 teeth and gums.^ Whether this broad tongue was to favour 

 the delusion of ' licking,' or whether the licking was presup- 

 posed from the look of the tongue, we cannot say, but that 

 the stuffed specimens did encourage the delusion is clear. 



Our Philosophical Society, founded about the middle of 

 that century, and the * Philosophical Transactions ' of those 

 days record the first arrival of tropical serpents in England, 

 and the marvellous beliefs concerning them. From them 

 we learn, nevertheless, that many things said to be ' new to 



1 In the 'Laidley Worm,' exhibited at the Grosvenor Galleiy in 1881, the 

 artist must have copied one of these. 



