NO ORDINARY VENOM GLANDS. 139 
which their possessors may be in the act of swallowing. Without 
such fangs escapes would be common ; with such they are rare.” 
He goes on further to say: ‘‘ The natives of South Africa 
regard the Boomslang as poisonous, but in their opinion we cannot 
concur, as we have not been able to discover the existence of any 
glands manifestly organized for the secretion of poison. The 
fangs are enclosed in a soft, pulpy sheath, the inner surface of 
which is commonly coated with a thin glairy secretion. This 
secretion may possibly have something acrid and irritating in 
its qualities, which may, when it enters a wound, occasion pain 
and even swelling, but nothing of greater importance.”’ 
This belief is held by naturalists to the present day, viz., that 
the back-fanged division of snakes possessed these posterior 
fangs only for the purpose of aiding them in retaining their 
struggling prey, and as an extra aid in the swallowing process. 
Sir Andrew Smith’s explanation that the sticky fluid observed in 
the fang capsules was merely capable of exerting a paralyzing 
influence upon such creatures as small birds and lizards has up 
to now been the opinion of zoologists. 
Naturally, I accepted this generally current belief, and, in 
consequence, I and my assistants freely handled these snakes, 
taking no precautions against being bitten, deeming such to be 
superfluous until, ‘like a bolt from the blue,’ Mr. James 
Williams, my assistant, was bitten, and came within a hair’s- 
breadth of losing his life. 
No ORDINARY VENOM GLANDS. 
I carefully dissected the heads of several Boomslangs. In every 
case I discovered a small gland on each side of the head, lying 
immediately behind and above the grooved fangs. It could clearly 
be seen that it had a connection with the cavity at the root of the 
grooved fangs, and that it was the gland which secreted the 
sticky fluid in the sheath enveloping them. 
The next step was to ascertain if the organ was really a 
gland capable of secreting any fluid, whether venomous or not. 
Dr. Robertson, of the Veterinary Institute at Grahamstown, 
made a microscopical examination of its structure, and reported 
it to be undoubtedly glandular and capable of secreting. Sub- 
sequent experiments by myself bear out this opinion, and, 
