Occasional Notes. 343 
that ithe manufa&urer of the inoculating substance pos- 
sessed such a power over snakes, that, at his whistle, the 
snakes in the bush within reach of the sound would be 
obliged to go to him, and that this same person passing 
by my, case of living snakes in the Museum would cause 
them to fall dead by the mere aft of passing; but — to 
take a rather different example— that the introdu6lion 
of some special liquid mixture into the body of a young 
woman,, did a&ually produce an enormous number of hair- 
pins in her system— an occurrence, I was assured, that 
was established on the testimony of persons of undoubted 
veracity, and among them the doctors who attended the 
youngwoman ! It is needless to say that the professor 
professed too much on this occasion, when I had no 
living poisonous snake in the Museum ; though at a 
later meeting, when I had a living though a harmless 
labarria in the case, he professed too little as regards in- 
oculation. For then, he not only refused to handle the 
harmless land-camoodie, and the presumably dangerous 
labarria, but declared, in spite of previous promises and 
protested desires,, that he would not submit himself 
to any experiments with poisonous snakes— though effec- 
1 tually inoculated and indeed a professing inoculator— no ! 
I not for a thousand dollars I and not only that but he 
would not allow his mixture to be tested even on animals 
— nay rather, be was going to cast it into the river! And 
certainly under the circumstances, I believed that the 
J river was about the fittest place for it. Here, at least, 
] the presence of an undoubtedly poisonous kind of sr>ake, 
| (as I have said, the snake was really harmless, for it 
! fangs had been taken out ; but, of course, Idid not men- 
tion this interesting fa6l) had had a. very curious effeft 
x x 2 
