It is much to be regretted that a number of anecdotes which describe this ‘lubrication’ have been retained and quoted over and over again in books on snakes. Writers who are conscientiously instructing us, and who are even telling us ‘snakes do _not_ lick their prey,’ quote the anecdotes which tell us that they _do_, and thus appear to favour the assumed mistake. Space will not permit of the numerous examples which might be here introduced in proof of this. Nor is it necessary to name more than two or three of these misleading anecdotes; the reader will at once recognise them, for they appear everywhere. First comes the M’Leod narrative, which has found favour with popular writers for no less than sixty-three years! The first edition of the _Voyage of the Alceste_, by Dr. M’Leod, the surgeon on board, was published in London in 1817, a second edition in 1818, and a third (so popular was the work) in 1819. His account of feeding the boa constrictor was not the least popular part of the little book; for in those days there were few who knew what to believe where a snake was concerned. The account of a goat being swallowed fills several pages, written in a style to exaggerate horrors, and apparently deny to the reptile any right to obey nature’s laws. ‘The python fixed a deadly and malignant eye on the goat:’ ... ‘first operation was to dart out its forked tongue:’ ... ‘continued to grasp with its fangs:’ ... ‘began to prepare for swallowing:’ and ‘commenced by lubricating with its saliva:’ ... ‘commission of this murder,’ etc. Maunder, in his _Treasury of Natural History_, quotes this, having previously stated (under the head Boa Constrictor): ‘The prey is then prepared for being swallowed, which the creature accomplished by pushing the limbs into the most convenient position, and _then covering the surface with a glutinous saliva_.’ Though not positively asserted that the tongue is the agent in this ‘covering,’ the reader naturally jumps to this conclusion. The ‘Penny’ and several other encyclopedias quote the M’Leod story, among them the _Encyclopedia Britannica_, ed. 1856, notwithstanding the compiler of the article ‘Reptilia’ affirms, ‘The use of the tongue is not exactly known.’ Surely this licking over an enormous mass of fur or wool, each time the reptile partakes of food, would be a very important use indeed of the tongue, did such a process take place. Mr. Philip Henry Gosse, in his _Natural History of Reptiles_, 1860, repeats the M’Leod story but he follows it up by also quoting a writer, Broderip, who carefully considered the subject, and who doubted the possibility of such a tongue performing this office. Mr. Gosse is one of the most popular of our ‘drawing-room’ naturalists. A careful and conscientious writer, he has contributed in his various works a great deal of valuable information, and has done as much, if not more, towards inducing a taste for natural history than any other author of his day and class.