An inquiry has lately met the eye in one of our scientific journals as to whether a rattlesnake drinks. Dr. Mitchel clears away all doubts on that subject by impressing upon those who keep these creatures the importance of giving them plenty of water, particularly when changing the skin. Deprived of it, the cuticle comes off unhealthily—_desquamates_, in fact, in bits. At the casting of the cuticle, or previous to the process, they will not only drink, he tells us, but lie for hours in the water. When they were disinclined to eat, and had fasted long enough to endanger their health, he fed them by force with milk and insects, and the way he managed was to get their mouths open and insert a tunnel a safe distance down their throat. While held in this position, a repast consisting of insects and milk was pushed down the tube of the tunnel in sufficient quantities. The most surprising circumstance in connection with this style of feeding, and also with the process adopted by Dr. Shortt of Madras in filling his cobras ‘as full as they could hold’ with sour milk, is that these fastidious and frightened reptiles did not disgorge the diet. Both experimentalists, however, found it answer, reminding us of some advice given to the keeper at the London Ophidarium in the case of the Hamadryad, which, having no snakes to dine off one winter, elected to fast. To force frogs or fish down its throat was suggested; but no one could be found brave enough to undertake the task, and happily ‘Ophio’ survived till a relay of ring snakes arrived. Both Mitchel and Coues corroborate what has been observed by others regarding the increased virulence of the bite when moulting; but both are of opinion that this is owing to an accumulation of venom, as the snakes have not been feeding or expending their store for some days. Even while not feeding, their venom is secreted all the same, and they survive many months, even a whole year and more, without food. Dumeril mentions one that lived twenty-five months without feeding. A startling and almost horrifying demonstration of what physiologists would perhaps attribute to nervous or to muscular irritability is described by Dr. Mitchel, namely, an action that had been begun in life, carried out in a headless snake. On p. 281 was described the astonishment of Colonel Beverley, who observed the severed head of a rattlesnake attempting to bite. ‘Then the head gave a sudden champ.’ Long after a snake is dead the tongue will be exserted as in life; and in other actions they, as it were, carry out their intentions though deprived of vitality. ‘The headless trunk will strike,’ says Dr. Mitchel, and continue to do this when touched or irritated as if it still had its head and its fangs to strike with!