SHORT STUDIES OF SNAKES. 303 



There the matter ends. The tongue, of itself, is as harm- 

 less as so much thistle-down, and the creature uses it 

 principally, if not wholly, in feeling its way along ; for a 

 snake's eyes are so placed that it can not sea directly in 

 front of it. Notwithstanding this fact, I find the impres- 

 sion common, even among educated people, that the tongue 

 of a snake is a veritable sting, and as certain to produce a 

 wound as that of a hornet or bee. It signifies nothing 

 that no one has ever been thus stung. These well-in- 

 formed people insist that they know that snakes' tongues 

 are stings, and so they keep clear of them. 



To return to the spotted adder. This snake, when 

 found in the woods coiled upon a heap of dead leaves, 

 will often closely imitate the peculiar rattle of the rattle- 

 snake, by vibrating the tail with great rapidity, and in 

 such a manner as to strike the leaves beneath it. I have 

 already called attention to this mimicry of the rattlesnake 

 on the part of the hog-nose snake. There it was, I 

 thought, a case of accidental imitation, the leaves beneath 

 the snake being unintentionally struck by the vibrating 

 tail. However this may be, my impression of this act 

 on the part of the spotted adder is that the noise is pro- 

 duced intentionally. Of course, I do not mean to say 

 that it is so far intentional as to be a studied imitation of 

 the sound made by the rattlesnake, that being a point 

 that can not be ascertained, and it would be crediting 

 them with too great a degree of intelligence to assume 

 that they studied the habits of their fellow-serpents and 

 profited by them. 



The last spotted adder that I had the pleasure of find- 

 ing vibrated the tail in a very marked manner. When 

 first seen, tha snake was lying on a thicjk bed of dead oak- 

 leaves in the woods. It was closely coiled, and, when 

 disturbed, raised its head, hissed, darted its tongue, and 



