MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES &C. 
xi 
2d. This could not have been done by the same muscle which 
forced the poison from the gland to the fang, as from its direction 
being downwards and backwards the poison would have been forced 
to the lower and back part of the animal’s mouth, but the poison 
having passed from the fang, must have been afterwards expelled 
during an act of expiration, assisted by what is rudimentary of the 
buccinator muscle so giving rise to the puffing noise. 
3d. That it is not necessary that the poison should he applied to 
an abraded surface for it to act, but the mere application to the healthy 
mucous membrane is sufficient to excite severe irritation and imflam- 
mation, which is however very different from the nareotico acrid action 
of the poison as introduced by a wound. The curious will therefore 
mind their eye when they approximate their faces to a snake of the 
above species let it be tied ever so well. 
Earthquakes in Java in December 1847 and January 1848.* 
A slight shoclc of earthquake was felt in the Residency of Tegat 
on the 27th. December about half past 10 o’clock a. m. —Javasche 
Courant 12 1 k January. 
In the night between the 6th and 7th January about 4 o’clock a 
very heavy earthquake was felt in the residency Kedirie, the division 
Patjitan, aud the residencies Djokdjokarta, Kadoe and Baglen, which 
appears to have been violent and prolonged at the above named 
places The accounts received concerning it all agree that the shock 
was felt in a direction of nor tit to south. It was heaviest in the di¬ 
vision Patjitan, and the shaking of the ground there caused much 
lime to fall from the walls, without however doing further damage; 
on the morning of the 8th January a second shock was felt there 
■which was not very heavy. 
At Djokdjokarta some serious rents have taken place in the walls 
of the residency office, and some remarkable workings of the moun¬ 
tain Merapie took place before, during, and after the earthquake. 
29 hours before the shock a deep subterranean noise was heard by 
some persons at the foot of the Merapie. Ibid, 19£A Jany » 
* From the Singapore Free Press of IGth. February. 
