66 . BRITISH SERPENTS. 



secretion for the longest period. Tliat is to say, it is 

 a matter of " dose " ; for a gland which has been 

 storing up secreted poison, say, for a month, will con- 

 tain more poison than one which has discharged its 

 contents the day before, and consequently will have a 

 more deadly effect on the person bitten. This is 

 doubtless a sound argument so far. But Dr Guy on 

 goes on to conclude- that the greatest accumulation of 

 poison takes place during the period of hibernation, 

 " because the animal is in a state of torpor, and does 

 not take any food during that season." i oSTow I con- 

 fess that this seems to me a very different thing. I 

 quite agree that the bite of an adder which has not 

 used its fan^s for some time will be more danf]jerous 

 than that from one which has emptied its poison-gland 

 of its virulent contents just previously. But I find 

 it hard to believe that the greatest accumulation of 

 venom takes place during the period of hibernation. 

 Consider for a moment the physiological condition of 

 the reptile. The activity of all the functions is re- 

 duced to a minimum. The heart just beats feebly 

 occasionally, respiration is almost suspended, the 

 secretion of the digestive fluids ceases ahsolutely, and all 

 chemical change in the body is as nearly non-existent 

 as is compatible with the maintenance of life at all. 

 The secretion of poison in the poison-gland is precisely 

 the same kind of process as the secretion of the bile 

 in the liver — i.e., it is the production of a powerful 



^ M. C. Cooke, Our Reptiles and Batrachians, p. 69. 



