J 94 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [September i, 1888. 
attributed to me the deadly fascination of the serpsnt's 
eye. I had killed, or rather wounded a small bird 
known to ornitholongists as the Malabar wood-shrike, 
which goes about in small flocks keeping up a harsh 
chattering. No sooner had I picked up the wounded 
bird than it began to scream, and the whole flock 
dtshed round me almost into my face, chattering 
and screaming. I could have easily knocked them 
down Lad I felt so inclined, so closely did they fly 
aiouud me, and this went on for two or three minutes, 
when they flew away. Now this is what probably 
l ad happened with the snake the writer saw. It had 
most likely killed one of a flock, and the rest were 
mobbing it as one often sees them mobbing an owl 
or other bird of prey. It is the habit of snakes to 
wait motionless their for prey, and they make great use 
of their tongue continually exerting and retracting it. 
Dr. Stradling noticed on one occasion a hen, which 
had been put into a cage as a meal for a snake, 
make a determined peck at the snake's tongue, some- 
times two or three in quick succession, evidently taking 
the tongue for an insect or worm." He has also seen the 
same thing done by a frog, so that it may be conjec- 
tured that the prey may be attracted in this way to 
approach the motionless snake. With regard to poi- 
sonous snakes it is easy to see how the power has been 
attributed to them. Sir Hans Sloane writes : — " The 
whole mystery of charming or enchanting any crea- 
ture is simply this- When small animals or birds are 
bitten the poison allows them time to run a little way 
(as ptrhaps a bird to fly up in to a tree) where the 
snakes watch them with great earnestness till they fall 
down when the snakes swallow them." Any one seeing 
this might easily be led to attribute some power to 
the snake's eye of attracting its prey. The apparent 
fascinatiou then can be accounted for in many ways. 
It may be the approach of an insectivorous bird or of 
a mammal in hopes of a meal; it may be the mobbing 
of the companions of a victim already seized, or of 
a mother whose nest has been robbed ; it may be the 
effect of poison already injected, or it may be simple 
curiosity ; but fascination as such may be dismissed 
as purely mythical. 
Mow, let us suppose the snake has seized his prey 
that it has been destroyed either by the injection of 
the deadly poison into its veins, or crushed by the 
constricting coils. According to the popular idea 
the next process is what is variously termed the 
salivering, or the lubrication of the morsel to enable 
it to be easily swallowed, and this is supposed to be 
effected by means of the tongue. That the snake is 
seen to pass its head over and round and about the 
body, and that the tongue is to be seen continually 
gliding over it, is perfectly true ; but that this is a 
process of lubrication is quite false. You might just 
as well expect a man to tar a railing with a camel's 
hair brush as a snake to cover even a small bird with 
saliva by means of its tongue. The tongue is bifur- 
cate, as finely pointed as the finest camel's hair 
brush, and is quite inadequate for such a purpose. 
What happens is this. As the snake always swallows 
its prey whole it has to take it in such a way that 
it will slide clown most easily ; so it feels all over 
with the tongue, which is a tactile org.m of the 
greatest delicacy, and ascertains which is the right 
end to begin on ; this done, it proceeds to swallow 
the morsel, the salivary glands come into immediate 
activity, and pour their secretions on the part that 
is in the snake's mouth in quantities thus aiding 
deglutitiou "which," says Gunther, "but for the quantity 
of f-aliva that is discharged over the body of 
the prey would be a slow process." This is not 
the only error about the tongue which, from very 
early times, has been looked on as the serpent's 
sting, In the book of Job it is said " The viper's tongue 
shall slay him." In the " Midsummer Night's Dream," 
Hermia, addressing Demetrius, says " an adder did it, 
for with doubler tongue than thine, thou serpent, 
never adder stung." Instances of this sort from 
Shakespeare could be multiplied, showing that the 
belief was general in his day in the deadly nature of 
the snake's tongue. But it is unnecessary. The belief 
waa general then, and it is by no means dead even 
now. If, then, the tongue is not used in saliverying 
the prey, and is not a weapon of offence, what is it ? It 
is, as has been before mentioned, a very delicate organ 
of touch. A snake's eyes are so placed that it cannot 
see in front or below itself; and as it goes forward it 
continually puts out its tongue and literally feels its 
way. It is quite extraordinary how people writing on 
snakes are carried away by their subject, and attribute 
all sorts of designs and powers to them. Even a prac- 
tical naturalist like Frank Buckland, in his " Curiosities 
of Natural History," writes: — " The tongue is generally 
protruded in order to intimidate the bystanders." Pos- 
sibly this is the effect on ignorance, but that the animal 
possesses such a high degree of intelligence as to be 
able to divine and play upon human stupidity is ob- 
viously absurd." 
Among the lower classes of India it is pretty com- 
monly believed that the rat snake is the male cobra. 
This arises, no doubt, from the fact that in colour 
they are somewhat alike, but it is, of course, an error 
as there are male cobras hooded like the female, and 
there are female rat snakes. It is curious how this 
error holds its ground, for people are quite aware 
that the rat snake's bite is not poisonous, but they 
believe that it uses its tail with deadly effect, and 
that a blow from it is fatal. Almost every Bnake 
in the imagination of the people is more or less poi- 
sonous. I lemember a curious case of a keeper in 
the public gardens at Trevandrum. He was bitten 
by one of the pythons then in captivity, about the 
year 1876. He was suffering from a kind of leprosy, 
I believe, which eventually carried him off ten years 
afterward, but during those ten years whatever ail- 
ment he had he put down to the effect of the python 
bite, and up to the last he attributed his illness and 
finally his death to the same cause. 
Two headed snakes are also believed in, but there 
may be some ground for this; not that they really 
exist, but the snake charmers sometimes manipulate 
some of the blunt tailed sand snakes and so deceive 
the credulous. But Dr. Vincent Richards, writing to 
the Englishman lately, gives a most curious account 
of a certain Sergeant Instructor P. as an instance 
of how the belief may arise without any founda- 
tion at all. The Sergeant brought what he said 
was a two headed snake, but which Dr. Richards 
at once recognised as a fine specimen of the "Bun- 
garus Fa&ciatus " which is possessed of an abrupt 
rounded tail, which the Sergeant declared was the 
second head and " so great was his delusion that 
he declared he had seen the tongue protruded at 
the tail before he killed the brute." The doctor 
adds "Here was an intelligent and undeniably honest 
man — for Sergeint P. is both an excellent soldier and 
a keen and legitimate sportsman — declaring most 
positively that the reptile under his very nose possessed 
a physical conformation of which it was utterly 
devoid." 
This is a very good example of how such stories 
get about; want of observation and a belief that 
nothing is surprising where snakes are concerned, are 
at the bottom of all such fables. Of course there 
are many myths in India about snakes. Dr. Malcolm 
cites one that he says is current in Malabar by which 
the origin of shooting stars is explained. " When a 
cobra finds a pot of gold (the Naga demons are 
supposed to be the guardians of under-ground treasure) 
he lies down on it and guards it; the gold shrinks 
and after many years concentrates itself into dust 
and forms a single luminous gem of immense value, 
called the 'Manikkam.' By this time the cobra 
has also shrunk to a small size ; he takes the ' Manik- 
kam ' in his mouth and flies away to bathe, his track 
been shown by the radiance of the gem." Now we 
come to the greatest error of all, and that is the 
belief that every snake one meets is not only poisonous, 
but absolutely deadly. One cannot accept the testi- 
mony of one's gardener or other servant, as they 
are profoundly ignorant on this subject and invari- 
ably affirm that every snake is deadly. Now the 
proportion of poisonous to harmless snakes in India, 
as regards the number of genera, is about one to ten. 
It is, of course, impossible to say what the propor- 
tion of individuals, is, but judging from the. fact that 
