[Illustration: Two fangs magnified, showing the slit more or less complete. _c_, a section. From Fayrer’s _Thanatophidia_.] In a mixed collection of thirty odd fangs of various snakes lent to me by Holland, the keeper, for examination, and sent all together in a little box, there were few in which I could not discern the join. The keeper was not sure to which snakes each belonged, excepting one or two of the largest, which were those of a puff adder. Those of the larger _Crotalidæ_ I could identify by the peculiar curve. In a functional fang of the ‘bushmaster’ (_Lachesis mutus_), which I myself took from its jaw, there is a well-defined line, like a crack, the whole way down, from the base to the slit; in a rattlesnake fang, also in my possession, there is a faint appearance of this line or join; and in a young Crotalus fang it is still there,—only a faint crack, such as you would contemplate with alarm in your egg-shell china, still there it is. It is scarcely necessary to explain that fangs differ in size in different families, as well as proportionately to the size of the possessor. In sea snakes they are not much larger than the simple teeth behind them. In the Cobra they are larger than in the Bungarus; in the viper they attain their largest size. But in one respect all fangs agree, and that is in their delicacy and fineness. Under the microscope, the stronger the lens the greater the degree of exquisite polish and sharpness revealed. To handle those of very young vipers is as difficult as it would be to handle fine needle-points of similar length. One can compare them with nothing else, except perhaps the fine thorns of the sweet briar, which are equally unmanageable, and, as compared with manufactured articles, equally exquisite. Sir Samuel Baker describes the fangs (both functional and supplementary) of a puff adder which he found. His words, if not strictly scientific, are so graphic as to convey a true idea of these terrible weapons. The viper was five feet four inches long, and fifteen inches in girth in its largest part. The head was two and a half inches broad. Sir Samuel counted ‘eight teeth’ (fangs), and secured five of them, the two most prominent being nearly one inch long. ‘The poison fangs are artfully contrived, by some diabolical freak of nature, as pointed tubes, through which the poison is injected into the base of the wound inflicted. The extreme point of the fang is solid, and is so finely sharpened that beneath a powerful microscope it is perfectly smooth, although the point of the finest needle is rough!’[95] He describes the aperture in the fang as like a tiny slit cut in a quill.