364 SNAKES. 



new fang, to 'interdlgitate and fix it In its place ; this soft 

 bone rapidly developing and hardening.' Sufficiently mar- 

 vellous is the functional fang in itself; the insertion of the 

 venom, a mode of subcutaneous injection invented long 

 before the doctors thought of it. 'A most perfect hypo- 

 dermic syringe,' Huxley calls it. Suddenly the hypodermic 

 syringe is removed, say by accident, by force, or by gradual 

 decay, and all connection with the gland is cut off; yet 

 within a given period a second, a third, an unlimited number 

 in turn replace it : the connection is restored and the hypo- 

 dermic syringe is ready for action again. How the new one 

 is brought into relation with the poison duct has afforded 

 much speculation, and in the American scientific journals, as 

 well as those of Europe, papers on this subject appear from 

 time to time. Dr. Weir Mitchel of Philadelphia afifirms that 

 when the fang is lost by natural process it is replaced in a 

 few days : when by violence, several wrecks elapse before the 

 next is firmly fixed.^ He speaks of the rattlesnake chiefly. 

 Fayrer gives the periods in several cobra experiments. In 

 one cobra whose fangs were carefully drawn out on Oct. 7th, 

 new fangs were ' anchylosed ' to the bone in twenty-four 

 days. In another, thirty-one days elapsed before the new 

 ones were ready for use ; and in two others, eighteen days. 

 In all of these cases the new fangs were capable of inflicting 

 deadly injury by the time stated. 



But the perfection of mechanism culminates in the viper 

 fangs ; and reasoning from analogy, the Intensity of poison 

 in their glands also. When at rest, these lie supine along the 

 jaw, but can be 'erected,' i.e. sprung down, for use by a special 



^ Smithsonian Contributions. Washington, i860. 



