Atwood.J 



134 [March 1, 



about the same as in the case of dogs. Mr. Sceva had once 

 travelled with a party of men from the Western States, who 

 had provided themselves with two bottles of brandy and a 

 bottle of hog's lard as antidotes for snake bites. They had 

 no reason to give for using the lard, except that they thought 

 the snake's poison could not affect the hog. Mr. Sceva had 

 known several cases of recovery from the bite of the rattle- 

 snake in California, where the men had drank freely of 

 whiskey and brandy. He did not think the bite of this 

 reptile so dangerous in the Northern States and California 

 as in warmer places. 



Dr. Jackson remarked that it is not so dangerous in Cali- 

 fornia as in the States eastward of the Rocky Mountains. 



Mr. Sceva, in reply to an inquiry by Mr. Putnam, said that 

 the poison of many of the venomous snakes had been tried, 

 both on themselves and on each other, without producing 

 death. 



Mr. Putnam mentioned a case in which the rattlesnake bit 

 himself several times, and was not injured by its own venom. 



Mr. Sceva mentioned an experiment in which a small 

 quantity of blood from a poisoned fowl was injected into the 

 flesh of another, and from the second into the third, death 

 occurring in each case. He thought that the venom of all 

 poisonous snakes acts in a similar manner on the blood, al- 

 though varying greatly in power. A great deal depends on 

 the quantity of poison thrown into the blood. A large and 

 vigorous animal might survive the action of a minute 

 quantity. 



Capt. N. E. Atwood spoke of the Capelin, Mallotus villo- 

 sus, one of the Salmonidse. It does not come as far south as 

 New England, but is abundant on the coast of Labrador, 

 around Newfoundland, in the Straits of Belle Isle, and west- 

 ward as far as the Gulf of St. Lawrence, also on the coast of 

 Greenland. It resembles the smelt and is a migratory spe- 



