VI FERINE FANGS. 377 



to explore, their scientific ' Reports ' in huge quarto tomes 

 can be more easily imagined than counted. 



This httle digression from the viperine fangs is by way 

 of introducing Dr. Elliot Coues. The volume in question 

 was not forthcoming at the British Museum, therefore I 

 ventured to trouble Professor Duncan with some inquiries, 

 which were kindly responded to by the sight of the work itself. 



There is in Dr. Coues' paper a good deal of what has 

 been here already described ; but there is also so much 

 that is of additional interest, that for the benefit of those 

 students who are not within reach of the British Museum 

 (where, no doubt, the fast arriving quartos will get catalogued 

 in due time), I will transcribe from the text some of the 

 passages as relating to viperine fangs generally. 



* The active instruments are a pair of fangs.' . . . They 

 are ' somewhat conical and scythe shaped, with an extremely 

 fine point ; the convexity looks forward, the front downward 

 and backward ' (referring to the slight double curve in the 

 Crotalus fang as shown in the illustration, p. 360). They 

 are hollow by folding, ' till they meet, converting an exterior 

 surface first into a groove, finally into a tube.' . . . The fang 

 is 'moveable, and was formerly supposed to be hinged in 

 its socket. But it is firmly socketed, and the maxillary 

 itself moves, which rocks to and fro by a singular con- 

 trivance. The maxillary is a small, stout, triangular bone, 

 moveably articulated above with a smaller bone, the lachr>^mal, 

 which is itself hinged upon the frontal. . . . This forward 

 impulse of the palatal and pterygoid is communicated to 

 the maxillary, against which they abut, causing the latter 

 to rotate upon the lachrymal. In this rocking forward 



