Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/785

Rh way, that these two branches of the Aryan stem were united during a great part of their history. It was left, however, to ancient law to solve the problem with more completeness, and to determine more clearly the place of Ireland in the great aggregate of Aryan nations. The preface to the third volume of the recently-published Irish "Brehon Tracts" gives a clear account of the development of the ancient laws of Ireland, of their relation with kindred Aryan usages, and of the social life that is reflected in them. Sir Henry Maine, too, has demonstrated that the native laws of Ireland are a mass of archaic Aryan customs. "He has shown that the old forms of Irish life, which he has reconstructed with marvelous skill, have a most striking and curious analogy to those of older races of Aryan descent, in various stages of growth and progress; and he has thus established the true inference, that the supposed barbarism of the Irish people is simply a conceit of undiscerning ignorance; that we may regard Ireland as a plant, of which the development has been checked and arrested, but that she is of the same stock as ourselves; and that we must seek the causes of her misfortunes in circumstances independent of race."

A Snake-eating Snake.—One of the recent accessions to the population of the London Zoölogical Gardens is a specimen of the Ophiophagus elaps, the snake-eating snake. The new-comer has been described by Frank Buckland, who represents him as a very formidable type of ophidian. In length he measures over seven feet; circumference about equal to the thickness of a man's wrist. His virus is as deadly as that of the cobra, and he is, moreover, a regular athlete among snakes. His head is very lizard-like and harmless-looking not flat and triangular as is the head of the puff-adder, the rattlesnake, or the viper. He has an intelligent eye. Like the cobra, he has a hood which he can expand when angry, and his body is ornamented with very pretty stripes. His mode of attack is peculiar: he glides after you with the swiftness of a hawk after a bird, and when he gets up to his enemy bites him and retires. He is, therefore, more to be feared than the lion, the elephant, or the boa-constrictor; one slight prick, quick as an arrow, of the poison-fang, and the life of the man ebbs out of a minute hole in the skin that would barely admit a needle's point. On his arrival at the gardens the Ophiophagus was treated to a live English snake, which he instantly seized and swallowed head foremost.

Mr. Buckland ascribes to Fayrer the credit of having given "the only correct account of this creature's habits, especially that of his eating other snakes." But herein he is corrected by Surgeon-General Stewart, who states, in Science Gossip, that Ophiophagus elaps was discovered by Dr. Theodore Cantor, of the Bengal Medical Service, who described the animal and its habits more than thirty years ago under the name of Hamadryas ophiophagus in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Surgeon Stewart gives some of his own recollections of the behavior of this serpent, while he observed it in company with Dr. Cantor. He says that it devours rats, mice, and small birds. Once Cantor offered a bandicoot to a Hamadryas. The former showed fight, and the latter seemed to be afraid, so the bandicoot was knocked on the head, and so probably the life of the snake was saved.

Prevention of the Effects of Bee-Sting.—From a letter in the British Bee Journal, by Mr. G, Walker, it appears that immunity from the pain and other injurious effects of the sting of the bee may be gained by inoculation with the virus of that insect. Mr. Walker allowed a bee to sting him upon the wrist, taking care that he received the largest amount of poison, by preventing the bee from going away at once; then he let the poison-bag work, which it does for some time after being separated from the bee. The first day he was stung twice. The effect was rather severe cutaneous erysipelas, disorder of the motor nerve, with the usual signs of inflammation. A few days having elapsed, and the symptoms having subsided, he caused himself to be stung again three times in quick succession. The attack of erysipelas was on this occasion not nearly so severe, still a stinging sensation ran up to the shoulder, and a lymphatic gland behind the ear increased considerably in size, the poison being taken up by the lymphatic system. A few days