792 DIl. p. CHALMERS MITCHELL AN"D MK. R. I. POCOCK [NoV. 12, 



Some additional specimens deposited in September of this year 

 refused all food for the first five weeks. A large one, however", 

 took a half-grown rabbit at the beginning of November. 



Crossed Viper {Lachesis cdternata). 

 (S. America.) 



Three specimens, deposited in August 1905, have fed almost 

 as regularly through the season as the specimens of Fer-de-Lance. 

 When frightened by the opening of the door of the cage, they 

 sometimes make a rustling sound, quite audible through the 

 glass, by rapidly vibrating the end of the tail against the sides of 

 the cage. In their natural haunts no doubt the same sound 

 would be produced by the shaking of the tail in the herbage. 



We also found that Glass Snakes {Ophisaurus apus), one of the 

 Lacei'tilia, Hatteria and some of the larger Frogs, such as the 

 Bull-Frog, readily taok dead mice and small rats. The frogs 

 invariably hopped into the water with their prey immediately after 

 seizing it, as if with the object of drowning a living animal 

 as quickly as possible. 



Summary of Record. 



It will be noticed that throughout the many months over which 

 our observations extended, our snakes fed with great regularity 

 and at much shorter intervals than is generally reported, espe- 

 cially in the case of the Pythons, It is also noteworthy that we 

 found no species of snake, poisonous or non-poisonous, that would 

 not take dead food, and that it was unnecessary to give live food 

 to any individual snake. In these respects, however, other 

 observers of at least equal experimental enthusiasm, have had a 

 smaller measure of success in inducing serpents to take dead prey. 

 Private persons who have kept snakes and Directors of Zoological 

 Gardens in Europe and America have spoken to us of getting 

 only one snake in four to take dead food, of poisonous snakes that 

 will never take dead food, and so forth. We set it down, there- 

 fore, not as a matter of scientific fact that all snakes can be per- 

 suaded to this non-natural form of diet, but as one of some interest 

 that with the large collection in the Society's Gardens, we have 

 been and hope to continue to be more uniformly successful in this 

 mode of feeding reptiles than have been the owners of any other 

 public or private collections with the exact details of which we are 

 acquainted. 



Emotional Attitude of other Animals to Snakes. 



In the course of our own observations and experiments at the 

 Society's Gardens and elsewhere, we have satisfied ourselves as to 



