712 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1898. 



tbe cobrn de capello, and finally state that they have made controlling experiments 

 with innocnous snakes which did not have such effect upon the animals bitten. 



In a subsequent rdsum^ of this article ' the same authors add that the effects of 

 the bite of the Malpolon are not to be feared by man. " It seems," they say, " that 

 the bite is only dangerous to reptiles, birds, and small mammals (mice) ; young dogs 

 have resisted the poison rather well." 



Similar investigations and experiments were carried out about the same time, or 

 a little earlier (1882), on an American species in Guanajuato, Mexico, by Prof. A. 

 Duges, who has published his notes concerning Trimorphodon hiscidatits," a snake 

 belonging to a genus representatives of which have been found along our southern 

 border. He gives figures of his dissections, showing the venomous gland, with its 

 duct supplying the grooved j)osterior fangs with the poison. He records his experi- 

 ence as follows : 



"One day I was admiring the snake. I saw him seize a Cnemidophorns aexlineatua 

 [the striped swift, a lizard] at the middle of the body, advancing its jaws so as to 

 bring the corner of the mouth in contact with the body of the lizard; for several 

 moments it cheived (a rare occurrence in a snake) its victim without the latter mov- 

 ing, letting go after having killed it; but at this juncture the saurian was swallowed 

 by another snake {Ophiboliis dollatus) which was kept in the same cage, thus pre- 

 venting me from finishing the observation. A few days after, the same Trimorpho- 

 don caught another Cnemidophorus by the left arm and chewed it several times. At 

 the end of a few minutes the bitten animal died without convulsions, without 

 agitation, as if asleep, a little blood issuing from the wound." 



A little later (1885), Mr. Otto Edmund Eiffe^ published some observations, also 

 made iu 1882, on TarhopMs vivax, an opistoglyph snake inhabiting the countries 

 bordering on the Eastern Mediterranean, and from his account we quote as follows: 



"I offered the half-grown snake a perfectly healthy Lacerta rivipara, which he at 

 once commenced to lap with his tongue and then grasped slowly behind the forelegs. 

 The lizard defended itself as best it could and used its teeth well on the enemy. In 

 less than a minute the lizard was almost motionless, the jaws were powerless, and 

 the eyes closed; before the expiration of another half minute the lizard died, and 

 was then swallowed." 



Prof. L^on Vaillant, of the Museum of Natural History, at Paris, observed the 

 poisonous eft'ect of the bite of another of the opistoglyph snakes, Tragops prasinus, 

 Wagler, and gives the following interesting account of one of the observations : ■• 



"A small living green lizard was presented to the snake by means of a forceps. The 

 snake seized it across the neck without descending from the shrubbery among which 

 it used to live, and by the play of the jaws drew it back to the corner of the mouth. 

 The lizard tossed and bent about, winding its body and tail round the head of the 

 snake; three minutes Liter it hangs dowji inert, only the tail still trembling; after 

 a similar space of time convulsions of the whole body occur again, twining itself 

 around the head, then relapsing without motion, except some spasmodic undulations 

 of the tail ; this lasts for two minutes, and the animal is dead. It will be seen that 

 this poison must have been tolerably active, as it caused the death of the lizard in 

 about eight minutes after the puncture by the fangs, which must have taken place 

 when the lizard reached the angle of the mouth, as the snake made no movement 

 after that." 



It seems quite plain from these observations that we have here to do with a spe- 

 cific poison. The victims succumbed within a A'cry short time, and while it is evi- 

 dent that death was not caused by the mechanical injury inflicted by the bite, much 

 less by the shock, there is as little room for assuming that it was due to the action 

 of bacteria-infected ordinary saliva. 



' Archives Italiennes de Biologie, V, 1884, pp. 108, 109. 



2La Naturaleza (Mexico), VI, 1884, pp. 145-148. 



■■' Zool. Garten, 1885, p. 45. 



*'M6m. Centeu. Soc. Philom., 1888, Sci. Nat., p. 41. 



