venom. 



60 THE LAND-MARKS OP 



or more viscid fluid than that of most other 

 animals, so that there is very little expense of it 

 by transpiration, it is able to go without food for 

 five or six months." Sir J. Fayrer kept a Daboia 

 for one year without food or water, and it was 

 vigorous, as regards its power to kill, up to the 

 last. I have had one in my possession for seven 

 months, and it has not partaken of either food or 

 water during the whole time. 

 Mead's Mead's microscopic examination of snake- 



microscopic ^ 



'^Mke-"" poison is most curious. He examined it in the 

 following manner : " I have oftentimes, by holding 

 a viper advantageously, and enraging it till it 

 stuck out its teeth, made it bite upon somewhat 

 solid so as to void its poison, " which having put 

 under the microscope, he proceeded to examine. 

 " Upon first sight," he remarks, " I could see no- 

 thing but a parcel of small salts nimbly floating 

 in the liquor ; but in a very short time the ap- 

 pearance was changed and these saline particles 

 were now shot out, as it were, into crystals of an 

 incredible tenuity and sharpness, with something 

 like knots here and there, from which they seem- 

 ed to proceed, so that the whole texture did, in a 

 manner, represent a spider's net, though infinite- 

 ly finer and more minute ; and yet so rigid were 



