OUR ANCIENT ENEMY THE OPHIDIAN. 63 



sbould escape being impaired. So it is with the 

 snake : he may have a hking for birds, mice, and 

 frogs, but that he can taste them is quite a different 

 thing. A cobra in the London " Zoo " one time 

 made a mistake and swallowed her blanket instead of 

 a rabbit. It is true she was partially blind, as it was 

 just before she should shed her skin,* but that fact in 

 no wise affected her taste. It is therefore perfectly 

 plain she could not distinguish the difference in flavor 

 between rabbit fur and a blanket ! To the average 

 American snake a sleek young mouse is no more ac- 

 ceptable as a tidbit than a rank, acrid-skinned frog of 

 the genus Iiana..\ 



But the way the frog is swallowed is something 



*At the time of sloughing, or casting the skin, snalies are par- 

 tially blinded by the dull old skin which also covers the eye. It 

 must be remembered that the ophidia do not possess eyelids. 



f Even a snake is food for a snake. Here is a remarkable in- 

 stance of such cannibalism. M. Leon Vaillant, in a paper read 

 before the Academic des Sciences de Paris, says l " In a menagerie 

 of the museum of the Jardin des Plantes, a French viper [Pelias be- 

 rusjhud to be put in the same cage with a horned vipev (Cerastes). 

 As the individuals, although they belonged to different species, 

 were about the same size, it was supposed that they would live 

 peaceably together. It was a mistake. During the night that fol- 

 lowed the Cerastes swallowed the Pelias, and, in order to accom- 

 modate himself to his huge prey, his body was distended so that 

 the scales which touched each other laterally and even lapped in his 

 normal condition, were now so spread apart that between the lon- 

 gitudinal rows a bare space equal in size to the scales was left. 

 Digestion went on regularly, however, and the Cerastes did not 

 appear to suffer." — The American Naturalist, March, 1893. 



