At the Victoria and Albert Museum of South Kensington, and at the University Galleries of Oxford, there are very splendid collections of rings. Neither collection contains a ring having the legendary needle-point, (or point:) but each collection has a ring which may have been a proximate occasion of the vulgar belief. Nº 916 at South Kensington is a massive ring of brass, 1⁷⁄₁₆ inches in diameter; and has an octagonal bezel externally armed with a quincunx of spikes. It belongs to the Eighteenth Century, and is of the kind worn by Bavarian peasant-lads on the right middle finger at the present day. Nº 385 at Oxford is an Italian ring of the Fourteenth Century, of gold _niello_, very beautiful. The bezel projects, and ends in the revolving rowel of a Fiery spur. Both of these rings are weapons, intended hideously to scratch and tear an adversary’s face. There is no hollow in them that might harbour venom; and they are in no sense venomous rings according to the popular specification: but they are rings,—means of violence of another species—; and, (men being what they are,) these rings may have formed the germ of the tradition. However, at Oxford and South Kensington, there were rings labelled _Poison Rings_, at the close of the Nineteenth Century. Nº 479 in the Fortnum Collection at Oxford, is an Italian ring of the Sixteenth Century, of gold, and having a tiny χερούβ carved in cameo projecting from the high gold bezel. This bezel is hollow, pierced by two pinholes. Its capacity is under an eighth of a cubic inch. The hollow bezel may have been used to contain perfume, introduced through the pinholes: but it is more reasonable to conjecture that the hollow is due to a desire to economise the precious metal. Nº 533 in the same collection, is a German ring of the Seventeenth Century, of gold, and having a large rough pearl set _in_, not on, its bezel. Minute examination with microscope and probe proves that there is absolutely no room in this ring for any venom whatever; and that neither this, nor the foregoing, deserves the designation “_Poison Ring_,” which, however, discreetly is queried on the actual official labels. Apparently, the said labels purely are a concession to the unreasoning vulgar, who expect as a right to find at least a specimen of venomous rings in every respectable museum. At South Kensington there is a massive ring of iron, plated and damascened with gold. It is Italian, of the Seventeenth Century, ¹¹⁄₁₂ of an inch in diameter. Its octagonal bezel is a tiny box having a hinged lid. This might have held a relic. There is no ground for supposing that it ever concealed venom.