upon it, could glitter on its brooks and cast a
shadow from the form of Milton on its paths
among the pleasant grass.

POISONOUS SERPENTS.

ON the morning of Wednesday, the twenty-
first of October, one of the keepers of the well-
known and attractive collection of living
reptiles in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's
Park, was bitten by a Cobra-de-Capello, and
died.

An animal devoid of limbs, no bigger than
a common eel, did, with a tooth inflicting a
wound like a needle-prick, slay a man in full
health and in the prime and vigour of life.

This, when one comes to think of it, is an
astounding instance of the potency of the
compensations awarded by Nature to the
weak and seemingly defenceless, and least
finished of her creatures; yet the self-styled
lord of creation has so often fallen a victim to
similar insidious assaults, that he has come to
regard the whole race of serpents with an
instinctive fear and disgust.

What is the weapon that in so small a
compass hides such deadly force? The
comparative anatomists give the following
analysis of it. It consists of the instrument
that pierces, viz., the tooth, or "poison-fang;"
the moveable stock or handle in which the
piercer is fixed, called the jaw; the muscles,
or moving powers of the jaw; the bag
containing the lethal ammunition, called the
"poison-sac;" the pipe which carries the
venom into the tooth, or "poison duct;" and
the squeezer or muscle that drives the venom
from the bag, along the duct, through the
tooth, into the wound which it inflicts. The
poison-fang, in order to be adapted to perform
its share in the complex machinery, differs
much from ordinary teeth and well merits its
special name. If the reader be familiar with
the form of a simple piercing tooth, as, for
example, the long fang in a dog, whence, indeed,
the name canine given to such teeth—a tooth,
that is to say, which consists of a hard, pointed,
long and slender cone, with a hollow base—and
if he were to suppose such a slender and partly
hollow cone to be rolled out flat, the edges
then bent towards each other, and soldered
together, so as to form a canal open at both
ends, he would have a good idea of the
general form and structure of a poison-fang.
The edges of the flattened tooth, which we
have supposed to be so approximated, are
bent round the end of the poison-duct, which
closely adheres to and lines the canal, and
the line of union of the two edges runs along
the front and convex side of the slightly
curved fang. The basal aperture of the
poison-canal is oblique, and its opposite or
terminal outlet is still more so; presenting the
form of a narrow elliptical longitudinal fissure
at a short distance from the fang's point: that
is left solid, and entire, and fit for the purpose
of perforation. A fine hair can be passed
through the canal of the poison-fang of the
cobra. The tooth, so modified in the venomous
serpents, is not implanted in a socket like
ordinary teeth, but is firmly soldered—so to
speak—to the jaw-bone, which commonly has
no other tooth to support, and is singularly
modified in size and shape to allow of the
movements requisite for the deep plunge of
the tooth into the object aimed at. It is only
the upper jaw that is so armed; and this,
instead of being wedged immoveably, as in
most other animals, between other bones of
the face or muzzle, is attached by one small
part of its surface to a bone above and behind
it, the joint being that hinge-like interlocking
one that anatomists call "ginglymoid," which
restricts the motion to one plane, but allows
the part freely to move in that direction: so
the upper jaw of the venomous serpent plays
or rotates backwards and forwards, having
special muscles for those movements, which,
when they push forward the jaw bring the
tooth attached to it into a vertical position
ready for action, and, when they draw back
the jaw, replace the tooth in a horizontal
position, where it rests, with the point
backwards, hidden in a bed of soft and slimy gum.

The poison-glands and bags occupy the
sides of the hinder half of the head, and in
many snakes give a swollen appearance to
that part, characteristic of such venomous
species. Each gland consists of a number of
long and narrow strips, called lobes, extending
from the main bag, or beginning of the duct,
which runs along the lower border of the
gland; and each lobe gives off lobules, which
are again subdivided into little cells, where
the poison is first elaborated or extracted
from the blood that circulates over the cells in
myriads of little capillary channels. The
whole gland is surrounded by a kind of
canvas-bag, or aponeurosis, as the anatomists
call such firm membrane, and this membrane
is in connection with the muscles, by whose
contraction the several cells and lobes of the
gland are compressed and emptied of their
secretion. The poison is conveyed by the duct
to the basal aperture of the canal in the
fang; and, as the salivary glands in other
animals are most active during particular
emotions—as, when they are hungry, by
the sight of favourite food—so, the rage
which stimulates the snake to use its
envenomed deadly weapon, doubtless excites an
active secretion and great distension of the
poison-glands. The wound is inflicted by a
blow rather than by a bite: the poison-fangs
when erected are struck like daggers into the
part aimed at: and, as the action of the
compressing muscles of the bag is contemporaneous
with the blow by which the wound is inflicted,
the poison is at the same moment injected
with force into the wound from the apical or
terminal outlet of the perforated fang.

The poison acts with more or less speed and
effect according to the species of serpent, the
vigour of the individual serpent, the season of