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the tooth, close to its root, and communicating with the perfora- 

 tion, lies a small bag, containing the venom. When the fang is 

 raised the closing of the jaw presses its root against the bag under- 

 neath; and the force of this compression sends out the fluid 

 with a considerable impetus through the tube in the middle of the 

 tooth. What more unequivocal, or effectual apparatus could be 

 devised for the double purpose of at once inflicting the wound, 

 and injecting the poison? Yet, though lodged in the mouth, it is 

 so constituted, as, in its inoffensive and quiescent slate, not to 

 interfere with the animal's ordinary office of receiving its food. It 

 has been observed also, that none of the harmless serpents have 

 these fangs, but teeth of an equal size; not moveable, as this is, 

 but fixed into the jaw. 



I believe very few of the water-snakes have these fangs, or are 

 in any degree venomous. In this family is a great variety ; some 

 very large, especially those in soundings on the Malabar coast. 

 Many in the Guzerat lakes are of beautiful colours; and their 

 predatory pursuits are extremely curious. They watch the frogs, 

 lizards, young ducks, water rats, and other animals, when reposing 

 on the leaves of the lotus, or sporting on the margin of a lake, 

 and at a favourable opportunity seize their prey, and swallow it 

 whole, though often of a circumference much larger than them- 

 selves. These, in their turn, become food to the larger aquatic 

 fowl, which frequent the lakes; who also swallow them, and their 

 contents, entire: thus it sometimes happens that a large duck not 

 only gulps down the living serpent, but one of its own brood still 

 existing in its maw. Standing with some friends on the side of a 

 tank, watching the manoeuvres of these animals, we saw a Muscovy 



