968 The American Naturalist. [November, 
distance and seated myself on the ground. After five or six minutes 
the snake turned upon its belly and glided rapidly away. 
Mr. John Cheatham, of Owensboro, Ky., informs me that on Septem- 
ber 23, he and Mr. John Harrison came suddenly upon a black or 
blowing-viper in a field. Mr. Harrison remarked that he could make 
the snake commit suicide; whereupon, he picked up a long stick and 
began to annoy it, driving it back whenever it endeavored to escape. 
In a few moments “the snake bent back and drew his widely open 
mouth violently along his body as if endeavoring to rip himself open. 
He then turned upon his back and died at once.” ‘This act of letu- 
simulation was so perfect that Mr. Cheatham and friend walked away, 
thoroughly convinced that they had seen a suicide enacted. It is 
ardly necessary to remark that the snake in question is perfectly 
harmless, having neither fangs nor poison glands. Many of the higher 
animals make use of the simulation in order to deceive their enemies 
or their prey. 
The Criminal Skull.—I give a figure of a model in clay of the 
skull of Jeff. Diggs who died at the age of fifty, having passed, accord- 
ing to his own statement, thirty years of his life in reformatories, work- 
houses, jails and penetentaries. This model is made to scale and is 
The Criminal Skull. 
