268 



ON SNAKES. 



with those snakes, which they have ascertained 

 have no fangs at all. In both cases, those impu- 

 dent rogues, known as snake charmers, are perfectly 

 free from danger ; and, as they find hy experience 

 that snakes are very docile animals, they easily 

 train them to their own liking, — until they become 

 as playful and familiar as kittens. 



It would he difficult to demonstrate, why poison- 

 ous fangs have been given hy nature to some 

 snakes, and denied to others. If, for the purpose 

 of defence, — then, we might look for them in all 

 snakes. So far as I have been able to observe, 

 they are seldom brought into action by the snake 

 which possesses them. 



Snakes are not revengeful; — neither are they 

 prone to be the aggressors. I would hazard a 

 conjecture, that, snakes in capturing their food, 

 very seldon, if ever, make use of the poison-fangs : 

 because, a snake, without these fangs, can just 

 as easily secure its prey, as a snake with them. 

 I leave this knotty question to be unravelled by the 

 clever zoologists of our own times; — hoping that 

 they will be more successful, than they have been 

 in their labours to convince us, that birds do really 

 anoint their plumage, with the matter contained in 

 the oil-gland on the rump. Firstly, the word oil- 

 gland is a misnomer. Secondly, none of them, as 



