the skin effectually.

To stuff the snake insert a funnel in the mouth, and fill the skin
through this with fine dry sand, or dry plaster of Paris, taking great
care to shake the sand well down, and fill in every part in a regular
and natural manner. On nearing the head, push a piece of wool in the
mouth to prevent the sand from running back, and then adjust the
snake to the position you require, leaving the head to be modelled
last with clay, putty, or plaster, then remove the wool and make up
the throat and inside of the mouth. The natural tongue should be left
in, and displayed with fine entomological pins pushed in the hollow
underneath, and, if shown open-mouthed, the fangs must be dropped,
and the head raised, as in the attitude of striking.

Large snakes, such as rock snakes or boas, must be cut on the old
system, viz, under the belly and skinned out, working up and down, as
the muscles have so firm an attachment that the slipping-out process
cannot be resorted to, but each inch will have to be laboriously cut
away from the skin.

Sawdust, mixed with a little sand, will be found very useful for
stuffing the larger snakes, as the weight of so large a quantity of
sand, or plaster, is too great to successfully manipulate.

A few hints as to snakes and snake bites may not be out of place here.
To distinguish the only venomous snake found in the British Isles is
an easy matter, if you have the opportunity of examination. In the
first place, the viper appears to have a more spade-like and flatter
head than the common snake, and has a black cross from near the neck
running up to the centre of the head, where it terminates in a black,
oval-shaped spot. But the greatest distinction, perhaps, is that a
decided pattern runs down the centre of the back, appearing as a chain
of obtusely-shaped diamond markings, joined together, and somewhat
confused in places.

Again, it has in the upper jaw two fangs or poison teeth, which in
rest lie folded back; on pulling them down with a needle, or by the
crooked awl, they appear as fleshy lobes, out of the apex of which is
thrust a little glittering point like a small fish bone. This small
bone or fang is hollow, and through it the poison is ejected by a
process too complex to describe in the pages of this work.

The slow-worm, common snake, and the one other rarer species found in
Britain, have merely the ordinary holding teeth, and are all perfectly
harmless. Should anyone be