and white corpuscles. Introduced into an animal these solid 

 l^arts produce no ettccts, but tlic clear liquid continues to act 

 as if it had not been separated from tlie former substances. 

 Venom is really a compound, consisting of several [at least 

 two] proteids, either of which is sufficient to cause death, 

 acting- differently however upon the system. The percentage 

 of the proteids in the compound is different, not only in 

 different species, but in individuals. Tliis, of course, explains 

 the reason why the successive symi)toms as well as the 

 attending results are subject to such great variation. More- 

 over, the influence of the venom upon the system is so exceed- 

 ingly rapid and i)owerful, and manifests itself in such differ- 

 ent ways, that it appears almost beyond our power to combat 

 with certainty in all cases the inroads of the disease. Snake 

 poison introduced into a warm-blooded animal may induce 

 death through several affections. It may occur through par- 

 alysis of the heart; through hemorrhages of the spinal cord, 

 or rather the medulla; through the thoroughly altered condi- 

 tion of the red corpuscles, which througli losing their bi- 

 concave form, are prevented from oxygenating the vital fluid, 

 and lastly and generally through paralysis of the respiratory 

 nerve-centers, or, iu other words, suffocation. 



The venom of the five Solenoglyph serpents of Louisiana 

 maybe graded successively as follows: the most powerful 

 that of Crotalus adamanteus; secondly, that of C. horridus, 

 followed by Sistrurus miliarius, which only stands behind in 

 the case of actual bite, on account of the inferior size of the 

 animal, but which administered in equal doses is about as 

 rapidly acting as the venom of G. horridus. The poison of 

 Agl-istrodon contortrix is somewhat slower in action than the 

 others; that of A. inscivorus is about of the same strength but 

 somewhat below in standard. 



The non-venomous snakes, or Asinea constitute by far 

 the largest number of the reptiles of the state. All of them, 

 however, belong to one family [Colubridae] of 15 genera 

 and 41 species. Page upon page might be devoted to a 

 description of the various and, at times, highly interesting- 

 forms, but that is not the object of this paper. 



The second order [LaccrtiUa] is, with one exception, less 

 represented than any. Louisiana has but eight species of 

 lizards, showing, however, a great diversity of forms in the 

 five families into which they are placed. The well-known 

 forms of Auolis and Soeloporn.s give us the types of true liz- 

 ards, but the uninitiated would scarcely recognize a lizard in 



