THE SERPENT’S TONGUE 135 
29 
these “vibrating forked threads” in literature have 
flickered more startlingly, like forked lightning, and 
to the purpose, than Ruskin’s own. The passage 
is admirable, both in form and essence; it shines 
even in that brilliant lecture on Living Waves from 
which it is taken, and where there are very many 
fine things, along with others indifferent, and a few 
that are bad. But there is this fault to be found 
with it: after putting his question to the 
“scientific people,” the questioner assumes that 
no answer is possible; that the stinging and hissing 
and licking theories having been discarded, the 
serpent’s tongue can do no manner of mischief, and is 
quite useless. A most improbable conclusion, since 
the fact stares us in the face that the serpent does 
use its tongue; for instance, it exserts and makes it 
vibrate rapidly, but why it does so remains to be 
known. It is true that in the long life of a species 
an organ does sometimes lose its use without 
dwindling away, but persists as a mere idle append- 
age: it is, however, very unlikely that this has 
happened in the case of the serpent’s tongue; the 
excitability and extreme activity at times of that 
organ rather incline one to the opinion that it has 
only changed its original use for a new one, as has 
happened in the case of some of the creatures 
mentioned in the passage quoted above. 
“A chameleon,” says Ruskin, “catches flies 
with its tongue,” inferring that the snake has no 
such accomplishment. Yet the contrary has been 
often maintained. “The principal use of the 
