s her progeny, and is this; that young viperlings come
into the world in full maturity of malice, offering to bite as soon as
their mouths are open, and flying at each other when they have no other
society to attack. We have five varieties in Rome." "Is the viper deaf,
Cadet?" "You should read the experiments of Peter Manni, a great friend of
ours who tames snakes; these will completely satisfy your curiosity on
this point:" and she fetched us the work of Manni, in which he gives
curious account of the influence exercised upon several varieties of the
species by the sound of a pianoforte, and afterwards goes on to relate the
effects produced upon the same serpents by electricity and light. "The
Viper," says he, "was impassive to the second of these agents, suffering a
lighted candle to be brought close to his eyes before he turned away his
head; of the harmless snakes, Coluber Esculapius came up to look at a
lighted torch, but, finding it too strong for him, gnashed his teeth and
bolted; Coluber Elaphis bore the heat of a lighted candle in his mouth
with apparent indifference; but the Coluber Atro-virens flew at it in a
passion, snapping and biting while he struggled to retreat; _he_ also
appeared most distressed under the application of slight electric shocks,
from which indeed all the snakes suffered, and the smaller ones died."

The action of some _poisons_ upon snakes is similar to that on our own
economy. For instance, on administering half a grain of strychnine to a
full-grown Coluber Atro-virens, four minutes elapsed before, any change
was visible. During this period the snake moved in the hand with his usual
vivacity; the flesh then began to grow rigid under the finger; and in half
a minute, the whole body, with the exception of three inches of coil, was
seized with a tetanic spasm--the beautiful imbrication of the scales was
dislocated by the violence of the muscular action, and the sleek round
cylinder of the body was hardened into knots and reduced to half its
former bulk. Reviving for a few seconds, the snake started, opened its
jaws, but immediately afterwards became stiff and motionless except at the
tail, which continued to exhibit feeble contractile action for about
twenty minutes. After death, the body, losing its unnatural rigidity,
became unnaturally supple, seemed without a spine, and might be doubled
upon itself like a ribbon. In two cases which we witnessed of individuals
poisoned by strychnine, simi