634 Transactions of the American Institute. 



operation depends. One man and a boy can attend to a group of 

 osmogenes, as all they have to do is to regulate the flow of the 

 liquids. The in-flowing sirup is heated to the boiling point of 

 water. The expenditure for labor, coal, parchment and animal 

 black, is about one franc and forty centimes per one hundred kilo- 

 grammes, which give about twenty-five kilogrammes of sugar. 



FEEDING SERPENTS. 



Replying to letters which have appeared in some of the London 

 papers, condemning the practice of feeding serpents in the Zoolo- 

 gical Gardens with living animals, Mr. W. Matchwick says, that for 

 nearly thirty years he has been in the habit of frequenth' visiting 

 the gardens in the Regent's Park, and has on various occasions wit- 

 nessed the rare, highly interesting and instructive spectacle of a 

 boa taking his food. Much misconception exists on this subject. 

 All constricting serpents feed on living animals of some' kind. You 

 might as well ofler a python or a plum-cake as a dead kid; they 

 feed also at longr and irregular intervals. The stories about the 

 special fascination of snakes, the trembling agony of their living 

 victims, and all that sort of thing, are very questionable indeed. 

 He had repeatedly seen boas and other large constricting snakes 

 take rabbits, pigeons, <fec., and never once observed the slightest 

 symptoms of fear in the living food. On the contrary, the rabbits 

 frisked about, often getting on the snake itself, and showing no 

 other feeling but that of curiosity in being shifted from some other 

 place. So, also, with venomous snakes. There is no specimen more 

 repulsive to look at than the pufl' adder {clotho arietans). Bloated 

 and swelling, its fixed, gem-like eyes, malignant and threatening, 

 ever watchful and ready to strike, the pufi" adder is the very type 

 of its kind; and yet he had frequently seen the small birds, given 

 it to eat, flit and flutter all round on and about him, totally regard- 

 less and unafiected. And then as to the manner of death of the 

 living animals thus given: in the case of the boa it is just Jis quick 

 and merciful as any one could desire. Struck (for holding) like 

 lightning, and at once enfolded, the rabbit dies instantly. With 

 the clotho, or the rattlesnake, it is nearly as quick and quite as 

 merciful. Struck with the poison fang of the snake, the bird, or 

 other animal, is instantly seized wuth a mysterious pa'alysis, and 

 soon completely dies. There is nothing cruel in all this; there is 

 much to instruct and to wonder at. 



