DR. TH. NEUMANN. 101 



However different in their size and shape of the body, 

 however different in their manners of life, in the poison- 

 ing apparatus the venomous snakes possess a sign which 

 distinguishes them at once with certainty from the 

 innocuous ; it is deplorable, indeed, that one cannot look 

 with ease and imx)unity at this infallible sign, but one 

 learns soon to some extent by careful observation how 

 to tell one from the other, even without opening their 

 mouths by force and searching for the " fangs." 



Thus they form a natural subdivision {Toxicophidia) 

 that needs no other characteristic except that they have 

 perforated or grooved teeth in the upper jaws besides 

 their solid ones. This subdivision possesses again two 

 distinct groups, the " Solenoglypha " {Viper a, Pellas, 

 Crotalus) with their fangs pierced by a regular tube, 

 and the " Proteroglypha " {Elaps, Naja, HydropMs), 

 whose fangs show only a groove or a canal instead of 

 an internal tube. 



Let us now look a little more closely at this poisoning 

 apparatus. One of the strangest ideas concerning it was 

 that of the Ancients, who believed that the end of the 

 tail was the seat of danger, while during the Middle 

 Ages many learned people maintained that the poison of 

 vipers was stored up in their teeth ; others said that not 

 the teeth themselves were injurious, but the liquid con- 

 tained in the sheaths of the teeth ; still others were ot 

 the opinion that the gum, the saliva, or the gall-bladder 

 ought to be considered as the producers of the poison. 

 Redi, a celebrated physician living at the court of Ferdi- 

 nand II, grand-duke of Toscana in Italy, during the 17th 

 century, examined all these parts without being able to 

 confirm what had been the unshakable belief of genera- 

 tions, that the above named parts of the body of a snake 

 contained poison. 



A wide spread opinion may still be found among a 

 good many people that the tongue of a snake is the 



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