208 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXII. No. 558 



whether the word is singular or plural. We will distin- 

 guish crochet with et, crocheted with ete, pique (the cloth) 

 with ue, croquet with net, and roqueted with uete. We 

 must not forget that Duchesne requires e.s-e, Duquesne 

 ues-e, Niquee uee, Torquay uay, and Queyrac uey. Chas- 

 sez ("sashay") completes our French list with ez. 



We spell seine with ei-e, eigne with eig-e, and eyot (ait) 

 with eyo. We must remember rhaphe with ha, Thame 

 in England with ha-e, heir with hei, and renaigue with 

 ai-ue. As an oddity we find quegh, which ought to be 

 obsolete, troubled with egh or aich (quaich), quoits 

 ("quaits" in the country) has oi. Theys (tay) goes with 

 keys, and old Mr. Trew (Tray) is ever faithful to ew in his 

 name. 



But why prolong this exhibit ? The reader is already 

 exhausted, and the chapter is not yet complete. Suffice 

 it to say there are nearly one hundred different ways of 

 representing the long sound of a, many of them in 

 patronymics and names of places that need to be pro- 

 nounced by English-speaking people. For other vowel 

 sounds there is an equally extensive variety of represen- 

 tatives. 



All this would, perforce, show the necessity of a reform 

 in spelling — phonetic reform, if need be; but, on the other 

 hand, the letters of a word are the earmarks, if you 

 please, that indicate ownershijD — that show the philologic 

 derivation and history of a word. Phonetic reform could 

 never touch the majority of irregularities in spelling and 

 retain any intelligence in the word. Therefore, with all 

 its faults, our heterographic orthography is _ preferable to 

 any homographic orthography that can be devised with 

 our present alphabet. 



What we can do is this: Drop some of our redundant 

 letters as me from programme, ue from catalogue, etc. ; 

 final e from strychnine, etc., when the preceding vowel 

 is short; a from plead (pled), past tense and pp., and sim- 

 ilar words; change p/i to/, as in sulfur. There is plenty 

 of scope for good work in this direction, and such work 

 will finally become permanent. We would become accus- 

 tomed to these words, as to dock-tailed sheep, and prefer 

 them. B. B. Smyth. 



Topeka, Kansas. 



Feigned Death in Snakes. 



Fob a long time I have desired information from others 

 about a common trick of the ordinary "blowing viper," or 

 "spreadhead snake" {Seterodon, in several species). I 

 have observed that such animals when much worried, or 

 slightly hurt, will frequently feign death. This habit has 

 doubtless been often reported before, but I do not recall 

 having seen definite mention of it in print but once. Sev- 

 eral months ago, some one writing about snakes in a 

 daily newspaper, alluded to this matter, and gave, as an 

 explanation, the off-hand statement that the snake be- 

 came frightened and "fainted from fear." That this is 

 not the explanation will, I think, appear from what I have 

 noted about several cases that came under my own obser- 

 vation. 



The first time I ever noticed this behavior on the part 

 of a snake was when I was a child. At that time I was 

 one day crossing a field accompanied by an old negro 

 man and a small dog. The dog found a common black 

 "spread-head," and, without actually taking hold of it, 

 began to worry it by running around it, snapping at it 

 and barking. Anxious to save my friend, the dog, from 

 what I supposed was deadly peril, I struck the snake with 

 the only weapon quickly available, a small whip I carried 

 in my hand. The snake immediately ejected a toad it had 

 recently swallowed, then appeared to bite itself in the 

 side, and promptly turned on its back and stiffened (but 

 did not become stretched straight out) and lay perfectly 

 still. There was not even a wiggle in its tail when 

 pinched. Believing, as I then did, that all snakes were 

 venomous, I supposed this one had killed himself; and 

 remarking that he "seemed dead enough," I was on the 

 point of leaving him. But the old negro said, "Oh no! If 

 you leave them when they bite themselves, then their 

 mates come along and lick the bite, and they come to." 

 So I mashed the snake's head in a way that no amount of 

 licking would ever heal. The old man evidently knew, 

 by some means, that snakes which appeared thus to com- 

 mit suicide would recover, and knowing no real explana- 

 tion of why they should he invented one. Therein he 

 followed the example of more eminent men than himself. 



Before I again noticed such action by a snake I had 



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