It is evident, however, that a good many of our drawing-room naturalists have not thought it necessary to first devote themselves to the scientific study of a snake’s tongue before they ventured to write about it; therefore they remained only partially enlightened. To such an extent has the supposed ‘lubrication’ prevailed, that ophiologists of the day have not thought it too trivial to speak of and to refute. The same visitors to the Zoological Gardens who tell their friends or children to look at the snake’s ‘sting,’ also wait to ‘see the snake lick the rabbit all over before it begins to swallow it.’ Were a painter to set to work to paint a house, or a mason to whitewash the ceiling, with a camel’s-hair pencil, it would not be a more tedious and impossible process than that of a snake ‘licking all over with its tongue’ the body of the animal it is about to devour. Illustrations, in order to be as startling as possible, and to feed the educated horror of snakes, often represent a boa or an anaconda coiled round a bull or some other equally large and rough-coated animal, which, as the writer informs us, ‘it was seen to lick all over and cover with its mucus.’ Let the reader reflect a moment, and he will perceive what supply of moisture this degree of lubrication would demand. Even were the snake’s whole body furnished with salivary glands, and were it provided with a broad, flat tongue to work with, what must the rate of secretion be to enable the snake to go through such a task, and to enable it to perform it in a period of time in which a spectator (supposing he had sufficient powers of endurance) could stand by and watch the process!