THE SERPENT’S TONGUE 139 
tongue is against such an hypothesis; and if the 
structure were different it would only remain to 
be said that the instrument performs its work very 
badly. 
Another explanation which has been put for- 
ward by two well-known writers on serpent life, 
Dr. Stradling and Miss Hopley, remains to be 
noticed. These observers came independently to 
the conclusion that the snake makes use of his 
tongue as a decoy to attract its prey. 
In the case of one of these writers, the idea was 
suggested by an incident in our Zoological Gardens. 
A fowl was placed in a boa’s cage to be eaten, and 
immediately began hunting about for food on the 
floor of the cage; the serpent—apparently seen 
merely as an inanimate object — protruded its 
tongue, whereupon the fowl rushed and pecked at 
it, mistaking it for a wriggling worm. Such a thing 
could not well happen in a state of nature. The 
tongue may resemble a wriggling worm, or, when 
vibrated very quickly, a fluttering moth; but we 
cannot assume that the serpent, however motion- 
less it may lie, however in its colour and pattern 
it may assimilate to its surroundings, is not recog- 
nised as a separate and living thing by a bird or 
any other wild animal. 
From the foregoing it will be seen that so far 
from being silent on this subject, as Ruskin 
imagined, the “scientific people” have found out 
or invented a variety of uses for the serpent’s 
tongue. By turns it has been spoken of as an 
