To Dr. Stradling I am indebted for a very handsome boa skin from Brazil. Spread upon the carpet it is like a piece of oilcloth, and at the first glance I exclaimed, ‘Even Mr. Ruskin could not disapprove of this.’ But on closer inspection one was obliged to admit ‘disorder’ throughout. The skin is about ten feet long, and the whole way down the centre of the back runs a pattern which an accomplished artificer would thus represent. There is evident intention of two straight lines with points at equal distances, a very pretty centre of rich brown, picked out with darker shades and spots of white. Throughout the entire ten feet of skin most of the points and intermediate centres had a splash or spot of white, and most of the points were opposite, but no two feet consecutively could I find with better finished markings than this. [Illustration: Exact pattern with the lateral spots.] The outer spots also were evidently of triangular intentions, and for the most part occupying the spaces midway between the points. These, of lighter tints, also run the whole length of the snake, the pattern of course diminishing with the size tailwards, but varying in no other way. The question is not whether the strictly geometrical or the less perfect design would be the handsomer, or we might give the preference to the pattern as we find it; but looking closely at any elaborately-marked snake, it certainly _is_ curious to perceive that in every case there is this same attempt at something too difficult to accomplish, as when a novice in fancy-work does her stitches wrong. The same thing is seen in the snakes of the frontispiece, and the same is seen again even in this simple pattern, a chain running down the back of little _Echis carinata_. The spaces are unequal, the black cross bands imperfect, and the centre spots some round, some oval, some almost absent. [Illustration: Pattern of a snake.] May we conclude that this incompleteness is a sign that the design is not fixed by long inheritance? But if it were so, and presented to us with geometrical precision, it is doubtful whether we could admire it equally! [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XIX. _DENTITION._