‘Where are the new snakes?’ I asked the keeper, hurrying to the Reptilium early next day. ‘What new snakes, ma’am? There are none fresh since you were last here.’ ‘Ah, well, they are coming! Most _interesting_ kinds. I shall wait for them.’ Sure enough, ere long a boy was seen approaching from the office with a ‘box of snakes.’ He also brought the news that the Doctor was expected ‘directly.’ Consigned to their cage, how I hovered about those ‘strange-toothed’ Colubers that long midsummer day! How I wished they would bring their heads close to the glass and yawn the widest of yawns, and how I waited for the ophiological dentist to come and exhibit their ‘fangs!’ for the donor of these valuable acquisitions had been devoting himself to the discovery of antitoxics, and was supposed to be snake-proof, and to do what he pleased with both venomous and non-venomous kinds. But the long midsummer day waxed on, and I gazed at the _Xenodon_ till I knew every mark of his leaf-like pattern; and the day began to wane, and my hopes of seeing the wonderful teeth began to wane also. And I felt I had a sort of claim upon this _Xenodon_, the ‘Jarraracca’ about which we had corresponded. I had relied so much on having the pseudo-fangs scientifically displayed to me, that when the visitors were departing and the keeper was at liberty, I told him about these strange teeth which I was so anxious to see, and at last persuaded him to open _Xenodon’s_ mouth for me, and to hold it open (which operation the keepers understand very well) while I made the dental examination myself. After all there was nothing in the shape of a fang to be seen! ‘Posterior tooth long, compressed’! ‘Last tooth very long, compressed, ensiform’! and so on, said the authorities; but nothing of the kind was here! I could see to its very throat, and the rows of tiny palate teeth and the four rows of jaw teeth, all exceedingly small, but never a fang. So I stared and wondered, and then in my bewildered amazement and vexation I passed my little finger along the jaws and _felt_ the upper teeth.