until the autumn fishing begins. On Friday (April 19th) Colonel Hemming, angling in a boat about six miles from the head of Loch Tay, hooked a salmon, which he managed to land after a long hard struggle, and found it to be of the enormous weight of 48lbs. ; length, 49 in., girth 26 inches. This is, we believe, the largest fish ever taken in Loch Tay, and the largest known to have been taken by the rod in Scotland. The fish was in high condition and of splendid appearance. There has been some splendid sport had on the Dee lately, one fisherman being lucky enough to get sixteen clean fish in three days. The report of the Tweed fishings is also favourable.

Until very lately the reports from all the grouse grounds have been that there is every prospect of a splendid season for grouse shooters. The wet weather last season soon drove sportsmen away off the hills, so that there was an extra quantity of birds left to breed, and they appear to have stood the winter very well; and as it was past the time that the disease generally makes its appearance, it was thought the grouse would escape "Scot free" this year; but I am sorry to say this is not the case, as they are dying by dozens on the front range of the Grampians. The disease was later in making its appearance this year, but seems to be more severe; but it is to hoped that it will only be local, as there is no disease reported in any other part of the country.

SNAKES

AND

SNAKE

BITES,

BY P. L. SIMMONDS.

There is perhaps no casualty more common, and one more speedily fatal in the East and West Indies, Australia, the Cape, and other British Colonies and foreign countries, than that resulting from snake bites. To this accident travellers, settlers, and emigrants, are particularly liable. It is, therefore, of importance that every one should know something as to the venomous snakes, and what can be done by himself or others, at once, in such cases. As either suitable surgical instruments to remove the bitten part safely, or medicines (whose efficacy to prevent death, from such injuries, is also very doubtful) are rarely at hand, it is well that persons should be aware that they can scarcely ever be without means to try effectual measures. Bringing first into a focus the scattered information respecting the venomous snakes in different countries, I may follow it up with some remarks as to the remedial measures to be pursued, and shall treat upon the various plants and specifics whose virtues have been extolled.

I am but a simple gatherer of facts and opinions, and shall not presume to go into any theories, or to give undue prominence to any alleged virtues of professed antidotes.

The Commissioner at Scinde recently offered a reward of £50 for the best treatise on the various kinds of poisonous snakes in Scinde, the mode in which the poison of each operates, and the best method of treatment, showing the symptoms during life, and the post mortem appearances, together with a separate code of practical instructions for treatment and cure.

Snakes appear to be in Scinde what tigers are in Singapore, the second great cause of mortality.

"There is" (remarks Dr. Buist, in the Bombay Times) “something very singular in the extent of the snake nuisance in Scinde, by which three hundred lives appear to have been lost in the course of the year. This, taken in conjunction with the slaughter occasioned by the wolves in the Punjab, amounting to somewhere about twice as much again, and the destruction, in a few months, of thirteen men by tigers in Singapore, impresses the mind more forcibly with the fact of the existence of a scanty and helpless population than a folio of statistical tables. Here we have man still battling with the beasts for the possession of the earth-the wolf feeding his cubs and provisioning his den from the cottage cradle-the husbandman laid dead, as he goes forth to cultivate his fields, by the bite of a reptile scarcely thicker than his finger or longer than his arm. At the battle of Meeanee we had 62 killed and 200 wounded; at Dubba, our casualties amounted to 370 killed and wounded, 40 of these having fallen. The snakes commit more slaughter in a year than was incurred by us altogether in two of the hardest fought battles that had occurred in India in a century, and which added a province fertile as Egypt to our dominion." That these things must have gone on in the Ameer's reign for unlimited periods unnoticed may be taken for granted. Now that they have become known to us, no time should be lost or efforts spared to mitigate a mischief obviously capable of extinction. There are about forty varieties of very beautiful snakes in the island of Bombay, of which some four or five only are dangerous.

The natives represent

The water-snakes there are also venomous. all snakes as poisonous; and as they are not very nice discerners of the fact, the belief, if not a sound, is a safe one, and may help to keep them out of harm's way. Few things would be more interesting than good collodion photographs of poisonous snakes. In Scinde, where gypsum abounds, and where the natives themselves are familiar with the art of plaster casting, fac-similes of the heads and necks of all the snakes in the country might be supplied to those authorized to pay the snake-catchers. The mould once made, casts could be obtained in hundreds with the utmost facility.

An Indian writer, dating from Midnapore, in Bengal, observes :"There are many local circumstances in this district which render the propagation of snakes and its attendant mischiefs a matter of easy occurrence. The vicinity of large tracts of uninhabited jungle, where every variety of the reptile acquires an uncommonly large size, and where the smaller ones, being preyed upon by the larger, contribute in no small degree to render the latter by far the most predominant class; the nature of the soil; but above all, the antipathy and dread of the natives to destroy snakes of the cobra family, upon moral and religious grounds, may be said to be the principal ones. No Hindoo in this part of the country will kill a cobra on any account, because it is believed to have been a Brahmin in its former existence; and its death brings down upon the head of its destroyer the same amount of curse as upon him who kills a Brahmin. And they firmly believe that none but those who are predestined by the curse of a Brahmin will ever be bitten by that snake; hence the strange fatality on the part of the people, who

will seldom hesitate to sleep in the same room in which even its hissings are distinctly heard; with so much infatuation on their part, it is rather surprising that comparatively so few casualties take place. I have very often seen the snake-catchers succeed in capturing large cobras, and after extracting their fangs, and playing with them for a few days in the streets, take them to the jungles of Gope, and leave them there to roam at large, or perhaps to find their way back into the city, through the Cassie. It is worthy of remark, also, that the station and town of Midnapore, owing to the numerous mud-hamars (barns) which they contain, afford not only a safe retreat to these little instruments of mighty mischief,' but the mice-holes which always abound in these rice-houses attract and invite the snakes, on account of the very mice being to them a delicate food.

That highly-interesting and poisonous snake the cobra, has received various names in different countries, especially in India. It is the "vepra naja" of the naturalists, called by the Portuguese cobra-dicapello, and has the English names of the "hooded snake" and the "spectacle snake. " Its Indian names are kuret, khorish,' "kellay," "gowhun" and "gokhoora, the latter derived from the semilunar marks on its head resembling the hoof of a cow, It is also called "keotay."

Venomous serpents in general, and cobras (najas) in particular, appear to be more prevalent in Hindustan in dry, rocky, or uneven ground, than in moist, level places. But further to the cast, the cobra occurs as frequently in the moist plains of the Malayan peninsula, Penang, and Singapore, as in the hills.

The ophidia of Ceylon are numerous, and the Singhalese state that there are about sixteen venomous species.

Mr. Sylvester has illustrated the direction of the poison apparatus of the "Vipera Russelli," consisting of a gland for the secretion of the poison, a duct, and a poison tooth, or fang.

"The gland," is oval, of a pale fawn colour, about the size and shape of a small almond, and consists of a number of elongated lobes ; each lobe is divided into smaller ones, or lobules, in which the poison is elaborated. The gland is enveloped in a tolerably firm capsule of fibrous tissue, which is attached to the cranial bones by processes, and being in contact with the surrounding muscles, the expulsion of the poison is greatly facilitated.

The duct" conveys the poison from the gland to the fang. It commences as a groove near the base, and in front; then becomes deeply lodged in the centre of the tooth, where it is protected by two inflections of enamel, which unite and convert the groove into a canal, again to become a simple groove at the apex of the fang, to permit of the discharge of the poison.

"The fang" in this instance is about three-quarters of an inch in length, presents a sabre-like curve, with the convexity anteriorly, and the base is laterally compressed, and the apex is produced to the finest point. In both jaws a reserve fang is embedded beneath that in use.

Mr. Sylvester also points out that harmless can readily be distinguished from venomous snakes by an examination of their teeth. The poisonous kinds are deficient of an outer or marginal row of teeth in the upper jaw, which are present in the harmless varieties, and are fixed

to the maxillary and premandibular bones, but their place is supplied by the grooved poison-fang. Both varieties have two palatal rows of teeth, which run from before backwards, a little outside the median line of the roof of the mouth, and are imbedded in the palatal and pterygoid bones.

A few exceptions, however, occur, as in the genera "Dryophis," "Dipsus," and the "Bucephalus," where the marginal teeth increase in size backwards, and several of them are traversed with a groove through which an acrid saliva is injected; but no true poison gland exists.

In making an examination of poisonous snakes some little care is necessary, as they have the power of concealing the poison fang in the lax gum, by a rotation backwards of the superior maxillary bone, and thus they effect a change in the direction of this large tooth, which would otherwise impede the passage of the food through the mouth.

I may quote from a paper recently read at the Literary, Scientific, and Medical Society of Graham's Town, a few additional observations on the structure and functions of some parts of the serpent:

"The poison apparatus consists of two parts-a gland for the secretion, and a fang for the transmission of the poison. The glands are two in number, and occupy the sides of the posterior half of the head. Each consists of a number of elongated narrow lobes, extending from the main duct which runs along the lower border of the gland upwards and slightly backward. Each lobe gives off lobules throughout its extent, and each lobule is subdivided into smaller secorning cæca, which constitute the ultimate structure of the gland. The whole gland is surrounded by a double aponeurosic capsule: the outermost and strongest layer is in connection with the temporal bone.

The poison-fangs are situated on each side of the roof of the mouth, and are firmly united to the upper maxillary bone. Behind these fangs there are the germs of several undeveloped fangs, ready to take the place of those which are in use, if they should be broken. These supplementary poison-fangs are loosely attached by ligament to the bone, and are covered over by a firm membrane. Professor Owen remarks that " a true idea of the structure of the poison-fangs may be formed by supposing the crown of a simple tooth to be pressed flat, and its edges to be then bent towards each other and soldered together, so as to form a hollow cylinder, open at both ends. The flattening of the fang and its inflection around the poison-duct commence immediately above the base; and the suture of the inflected margins runs along the anterior and convex side of the recurved fang. The poison-canal is thus in front of the pulp-cavity." In this way the fang appears, as is commonly described, to be perforated by the duct of the poison-gland. The fang-which the writer now produced-with a bristle passed through the poison-canal, illustrates very plainly the poison-canal passing along the convex side of the tooth, with the pulp-cavity of the tooth behind it. It also shows the termination of the canal, a little above the point of the tooth-a construction which renders this part much stronger, and, consequently, less liable to be broken when the deadly blow is struck, than it would be if the canal had been carried on to the extreme point. The poison-fang rotates with the superior maxillary bone, so as to keep the tooth laid flat at ordinary times, and to erect it when the

animal wishes to use it. During this act the head of the snake is raised, drawn backwards; the fangs, erect, and exposed by the widely-opened mouth, are struck, by the force of the powerful muscles of the head and neck, into the surface aimed at; the poisonbags at the same moment are squeezed, and their contents driven through the canal in the tooth into the wound. Professor Owen thinks that the rage which stimulates the venom-snake to use its deadly weapon excites increased secretion of the poison, just as the salivary glands secrete more saliva when excited by certain emotions -as, for example, the sight of food frequently, to use a common expression, "makes the mouth water." A very interesting and accurate account of the arrangement and structure of the poison-fangs in a rattlesnake, dissected in the year 1682, by Ed. Tyson, M.D., is given in the "Philosophical Transactions" for that period.

The teeth of the serpent are small, simple, conical, and directed backwards. In the non-venomous species there are four rows in the upper jaw-two outer, attached to the maxillary and inter-maxillary bones; and two inner, attached to the palatine and pteryoid bones. In the venomous kinds the outer rows of teeth are supplanted by the poison-fangs. In both the venomous and non-venomous species the lower jaw is armed with a row of sharp, recurved, simple teeth. In some serpents the inferior spinous processes of the cervical vertebræ are long and sharp, and penetrate the upper wall of the gullet, and serve for crushing food, such as eggs, &c., upon which these animals feed.

In treating of the distinguishing characters between the poisonous and the harmless serpents, the writer observes that the differences may be arranged under two heads-first, the existence of poisonfangs; second, external characters.

The structure and appearance of the poison-fangs have been already described; but it appears that some authorities doubt that all serpents destitute of pierced fangs in the lower part of the jaw are nonvenomous. In the last edition of Cuvier's "Animal Kingdom" it is stated that all have a maxillary gland, often very large; and the back-teeth frequently exhibit a groove which would seem to contain some liquor. This much is certain--that various species, the backteeth of which are very large, are reputed to be extremely venomous in the countries which they inhabit-an opinion which is confirmed by the experiments of Lalande and Leschenauld, which it is desirable should be repeated. Again, it is not always an easy matter to distinguish between the poison-fangs and the common teeth; for in some varieties of serpents there is scarcely any difference in the size and appearance of these structures. As a general rule, however, when there is found a tooth-like process firmly united to the anterior and external part of the upper jaw-bone, the latter bone at the same time being very small and movable, then there is considerable certainty of the existence of a poison-fang. The following simple operation will assist in distinguishing between the poison-fangs and common teeth: Let a pin be drawn from the anterior and external part of the upper jaw to the angle of the mouth. If no more teeth are felt in that line than one or two at the fore-part, it may be certainly concluded that these teeth are fangs, and that the serpent is a