Suddenly a certain day of one’s childhood flashed into my mind, and a certain scene of home. One Michaelmas Day it was, when, having stolen surreptitiously into the kitchen to coax the cook to ‘_let_ me see the goose!’ I found her busy preparing the bird, and clambered into a chair to watch her. ‘What’s _that_?’ I demanded, seeing part of a long, pipe-like looking thing lying there. ‘Oh, that’s the windpipe. That’s like what _you’ve_ got in _your_ throat; and that’s where the crumbs get to make you choke so,’ in allusion to a recent occurrence. I gazed with awe and interest at that very strange thing, and wondered if it really could be like anything in my own throat, and where it began and ended, and so on. And that goose’s windpipe was indelibly stamped on my memory. And now that scene came vividly back to me, for there was a windpipe sort of look about this appendage to the snake’s jaw, only it did not appear to be bruised or injured in any way. Nor from the position of the duck (by this time half swallowed) could it belong to the bird. And, again, it moved with an independent motion! And now the snake threw up its head, to free the legs of the duck from its folds where it had been held, and as you see horses toss up their heads to get the grain in the bag hung on their noses, and I saw the tube-like object still more plainly. Then, with a strange, awe-struck feeling, came a conviction that this could be nothing less than the poor snake’s windpipe, and that something must be very wrong with it. I beckoned to the keeper, and pointed to it, telling him, ‘I do think that must be its windpipe. Is it hurt?’ The keeper said, ‘No, the snake was not hurt. That he had often seen it like that when the snakes were feeding; and that he also thought it must be the windpipe, to enable the snake to breathe while feeding.’ Next day, with eager steps and excited curiosity, I hurried to the British Museum reading-room, thinking I had made a wonderful discovery, for I had never heard this strange phenomenon alluded to, and the keeper evidently knew very little about it. With this great secret on my mind, I flew to the well-known shelves, to secure those books which would certainly enlighten me if information were to be had. Alas! for my wonderful discovery, though it really had been a portion of the windpipe which was thus extended from the mouth, it was what had been known long ago by those physiologists who had studied the anatomy of the ophidia, and it was as coolly described as if it were the commonest occurrence in the world for creatures to do what they pleased with their windpipe! Says Professor Owen in his _Anatomy of the Vertebrates_, vol. i. p. 525: ‘The glottis of serpents can be drawn forward and protruded from the mouth by the action of’ (certain surrounding) ‘muscles. In marine serpents the glottis is situated very near the fore part of the mouth, and the air can be inspired at the surface of the water without exposure of the jaws.’