NOTES AND QUERIES. 31 



the auterior teeth causing but minute punctures. Knowing the general 

 harmlessness of the snake, T paid no attention to the bite beyond wiping 

 the blood away — although it smarted rather sharply — until, about half-an- 

 hour after, the finger became much swollen at the place and distinctly very 

 painful, much more so than I was prepared for from the mere fact of the 

 wound, and rather as if it had been Jstung by some of the larger wasps. 

 The swelling became no greater, but the pain increased, and was only 

 lessened by the application of ammonia, and it was not till about four hours 

 afterwards that real relief was obtained, though the place was tender for a 

 much longer time. In the other case, the experience was that of the clerk 

 in the Museum, who was bitten on the finger by a young specimen of the 

 common Frog or Mattipi Snake, Xenodon severus, whose hinder enlarged 

 movable teeth were driven deeply into the flesh, with a result similar to 

 that described in the case of the other snake. Frequently, in handling these 

 little harmless snakes, one may receive a bite or nip from them, but it is 

 seldom, under the circumstances, that they have the chance of driving in 

 their specialized hinder maxillary teeth ; and the foregoing instances, in 

 which this took place, are simply mentioned because a similar painful result 

 has never been noticed when the bite has been given by the small anterior 

 teeth. There can be no question, in these cases, of a bad state of health ; 

 nor, considering the amount and degree of pain and swelling, can the result 

 be ascribed to the mere laceration produced. The whole effect seemed to 

 me to be due to the fact that, in these two instances, the small snakes 

 were able to grasp, with their large specialised teeth, the small parts of the 

 fingers, just as they would grasp the small animals on which they prey; 

 and the effect produced in the small animals would be such as no doubt to 

 cause temporary paralysis or unconsciousness, the better to enable the snake 

 to swallow them — -just as in the case of so many of the Hymenoptera and other 

 such forms, the sting, which is only painful and local in man and other 

 large animals is sufficient to paralyse, if not kill, the small insects which 

 they secure as food in their nests for their young, and which they are thus 

 enabled to manipulate without trouble. That the peculiarly painful result 

 was caused by a specialised secretion, seems to me to be the only sane 

 conclusion in these cases ; and the fact of the teeth being grooved — in one 

 case at least — tends to confirm this. That the glandular structures at the 

 base of, and around, the specialised teeth secrete some specially acrid fluid 

 or poison, which bathes the tooth and becomes carried into the wound by 

 the teeth, seems to me to be no more strange than that a very similar thing 

 should occur in the well-known cases of the various stinging Rays, where the 

 spines, even in the water, are thus rendered highly offensive and defensive 

 organs. — J. J. Quelch (Georgetown, British Guiana). 



