100 BRITISH SERPENTS. 
for the legitimate purposes of tongues—that is, either 
for feeding purposes or as an instrument of tactile 
sensibility. To show how unreliable are the snake- 
stories that are told in some country districts, the 
following may be mentioned. I was snake-hunting 
with my friend F. G. Aflalo in July 1900, and we had 
as a guide a man who was going to show us the haunt 
of some adders. He was quite right as far as the 
adders being there was concerned, but en route he told 
us of an adder in this spot that had once “stung” him, 
and the sting—ve., the tongue—went through his 
legeings! We felt that to attempt to convince him 
that the adder’s tongue was probably more innocent 
than his own would only result in his taking no further 
interest in the day’s work, besides the total loss of our 
reputations in his eyes, so we listened with all due 
respect to this and other terrible tales. 
The windpipe is long and narrow, ending in the 
simple sae-like lung. By an interesting anatomical 
arrangement the pipe can be protruded out of the 
mouth during the swallowing of some particularly 
difficult morsel, at which time the appearance of the 
reptile is very peculiar. This arrangement is also 
seen in other snakes. 
Csophagus or gullet.—From what was said about 
the food of the adder it must be quite evident that 
the gullet is a very capacious organ, capable of con- 
siderable distension. So indeed it is. In an adder 24 
inches long the average leneth of the gullet is 9 inches, 
