OUR ANCIENT ENEMY THE OPHIDIAN. 61 



are many who think the snake exerts a sort of charm 

 over its prey ; that a frightened mother^ snake 

 temporarily swallows her young in time of danger ; 

 and that the forked tongue of the creature is its 

 deadly sting. Then one is told that a certain terrible 

 serpent of Africa rolls itself up like a hoople, chases 

 a man, and strikes him dead with its horny, spiked 

 tail. Also one is told that a snake never dies before 

 sunset ; that it always hcks its prey all over with its 

 forked tongue preparatory to swallowing it, so that it 

 will " shp down easily " ; and that when its fangs are 

 extracted it hves an indefinite length of time on the 

 stimulus of its own poison, and without food, and so 

 on—ad ahsurdum ! 



But, as opposed to all this nonsense, I can cite a 

 number of facts not less remarkable and curious. 

 Snakes, for instance, are strangely tenacious of life ; 

 some can and do live a while without their brains or 

 without their heart. The body decapitated for a cer- 

 tain length of time continues to move and coil, and 

 the separated head will dart out the tongue, or even 

 try to bite ; * but I am not aware that these automatic 

 and convulsive movements are in any way checked by 



* And more than this : Dr. S. Weir Mitchell says, " H we cut 

 off a snake's head and then pinch its tail, the stump of the neck 

 returns and with some accuracy hits the hand of the experimenter 

 — if he has the nerve to hold on ! " — Century Magazine, August, 

 1889, p. 507. 



