Poison-Secreters. 
[November, 
672 
manner. It is said to have, at the extremity of its tail, a 
hard, bony sting, with its accessory poison-gland. In at- 
tacking it seizes hold of its enemy with its jaws, and, 
curving up its body, drives the sting into any part within 
reach. I very much wish that this strange story might be 
either verified or refuted. 
In the venomous Hymenoptera — bees, wasps, and hor- 
nets — the weapon is a modification of the secondary 
generative organs. The sting of the scorpion, though 
situate at the posterior end of the body, is totally dissimilar 
to that of the bee. It is a special development of the 
extremity of the body. The spiders envenom by means of 
specialised antennae, and the centipedes by peculiarly 
developed fore legs which have lost their progressive func- 
tion. In the suctorial inserts, such as Hemiptera and 
certain Diptera, the venom is conveyed by the tube through 
which food is taken up. 
An interesting feature is that where silk-spinning and 
poison-secreting occur in the same animal the organs for 
these two purposes exist at opposite extremities of the 
body. 
Concerning the chemical nature of the venoms secreted 
by different animals little definite is known. The secre- 
tions of species not very remote from each other are by no 
means identical. The poison of the bees and the ants is 
acid, that of the wasps and hornets alkaline. 
Concerning the venom of serpents, it is not yet de- 
cisively known whether we have here to do with a chemical 
individual, — such, e. g., as a ptomaine, — or with an 
organised virus, like that of plague or cholera, capable of 
reproducing itself and multiplying in the body of the victim. 
Here authorities differ, and crucial experiments are on 
British soil almost impossible, thanks to the Bestiarian 
agitation. 
For young naturalists residing in tropical and semi- 
tropical countries there is here a splendid field for 
research. 
