Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/161

Rh for the larvæ of the insects of the Family Dermestidæ.

When irritated or alarmed, some of the Serpents (the non-venomous ones, at least) have recourse to two very distinct actions, both of which seem to be means of defence. The first is the production of the shrill sound already alluded to, called hissing, by the forcible ejection of air from the narrow glottis. This sound, though so familiarly spoken of as to have become almost proverbial, we cannot help thinking, is uttered rather infrequently; as we have seen species of Colubridæ and Boadæ excited to rage, but do not remember ever to have heard the “hissing” in question. MM. Duméril and Bibron also state that they never could hear more than a sort of blowing (soufflement), such as would result from the rapid issue of a current of air through a simple pipe,–a quill, for instance. The other defence is much more certain, and less likely to be overlooked. It consists in the diffusion of a fetid, sickening odour, so nauseous as to be overpowering. It proceeds from certain glands situated near the orifice of the body. We have remarked in the Boa, that the urine, which is discharged in the form of a butyraceous pulp, like moist plaster of Paris, has the same fetor.

White of Selborne gives the weight of his testimony to both of these modes of defence. “I wish I had not forgot to mention the faculty that snakes have of stinking se defendendo. I knew a gentleman who kept a tame snake, which was in its person as sweet as any animal while in good humour and unalarmed; but as soon as any stranger, or a dog, or a cat, came in, it fell to