84 OPHIDIANS. 
at the will of the snake; I can say that I never found any 
difficulty in extracting from any snake with fangs all the 
poison held in deposit in the poison-sac by pressure upon the 
external parts, and that in so doing I have never been able to 
discover that any act of volition on the part of the reptile 
could prevent it. 
A perfectly healthy person, or one whose digestive organs 
are perfectly sound, can take two or three drops of this poison 
in a teaspoonful of water, without its producing any fatal 
effects ; but should any organic lesion of any of the parts of 
the digestive apparatus exist, it would then act toxically, by 
being absorbed into the part where the lesion exists, and 
prove fatal in precisely the same manner as by the bite of the 
snake. 
The buccal glands, which are attached to the periphery of 
the upper mandible on each side, by contraction press upon 
the poison-bladder, and thus produce a flow of the liquid 
through the extreme point of the fang, introducing it, by this 
arrangement, into the deepest part of the wound made: by the 
latter. : 
A fold of membranous texture is attached from the ante- 
rior point of the attachment of the buccal gland to the poste- 
rior angle of the mouth, on the inside of the fang, and also 
along the periphery of the upper part of the mouth and out- 
side of the fang, this forming a long triangular-shaped sac, in 
which the fang is inclosed when distended, which in its lower 
apex is perforated by a small hole surrounded by an elastic 
ring or sphincter of a fibrous nature. When this is expanded 
and the sac contracted, the fang protrudes; but when the sac 
is expanded, the contraction of the fibrous ring closes the 
little opening completely. The posterior part of the triangu- 
lar sac has its two opposite sides united by a transverse mem- 
brane, which runs nearly up to the point of attachment of the 
