80 Scientific Intelligence. 
Netto (Brazilian Minister to the United States) and placed in the 
hands of Mr. Louis Olivier, who, after a careful study of the 
specimen, submitted the results thereof to the Botanical Society 
nce. 
* What is grea a says Mr. Olivier, in an article on the 
subject in La Nature, “is that the entire body of the snake is 
lignified,* the anatomical study that I have made of it having 
‘ shown me that it consists of cells and fibres like those of the 
secondary wood which surrounds it. It is impossible to explain 
the fact by saying that there has occurred a formation of these 
elements in a hollow, which, having been traversed by the animal, 
has preserved the form of the latter ; for on the piece of wood it 
is not only the contour of the snake that is visible, but, indeed, 
the whole relief c its body. 
e head there is likewise opens in relief a 
small cylinder which appears to represent the larva of an insect. 
It seems, then, that the snake, in pursuing the eee into a fissure 
in the tree, has insinuated itself between the wood and the bark 
into the cambium-layer, which is well known to be the generator 
of wood and secondary liber. The function of this cambium-tissue 
is two-fold; in the interior it gives rise, in a centripetal direction, 
to ligneous elements, the youngest of which are conseque ently 
found at periphery of the wood; but, toward the exterior, on the 
contrary, it produces, in a centrifugal direction, liber-fibres, 
but, besides ei Ba and aera fibres ae saved from the 
cambium-tissues have been substituted for the elements which 
constituted the “aon portions of the snake in measure as these 
ave become absorbe The places that these occupied et as 
they gradually disappeared, been taken by secondary wood, 
het can) i be ee -E is Se ore by che very relief of the gaakets 
ar 
% The result, as in eased of petrifaction, is that in some parts of 
the body certain delicate details of the animal’s organization are 
clearly visible. This is especially the case with regard to the 
stri i 
it fully bears out this wateindde 
* Except the center, in which are found the constituent elements of the animal. 
