efully avoiding the risk of a puncture from its fangs.

"Hurrah!" shouted Dan when he saw the victory gained by the black snake.
The reptile, the combat being now over, was startled by the sound of
his voice. For an instant it looked at us with head erect, as if about
to spring forward to the attack, when Dan, before Mr Tidey could stop
him, lifted his rifle and fired. The big snake fell, and, after a few
convulsive struggles, was dead beside its conquered foe.

"I wish that you had let the creature live," said Mr Tidey; "it would
have done us no harm and deserved to go free; besides which it would
probably have killed a number more rattlesnakes."

"Unless bitten itself," I remarked.

"It was too wary a creature and too rapid in its movements to be taken
at a disadvantage," observed Mr Tidey. "It would have waited until it
could catch another rattle-snake taking its dinner. However, as the
creature is killed, we will examine it and see how it differs from the
venomous reptile. To prevent the other from coming to life, we will
make sure work by cutting off its head."

"Be careful," cried Dan, "I thought I saw its body move."

Taking his axe from his belt, our tutor, with one blow, severed the head
from the body.

"Don't prick your finger with its sharp fangs," said Mr Tidey, "for,
although the creature is dead, the poison may exude and perhaps produce
death even now."

As he spoke he held up the head by the tail of the squirrel. The body
of the little creature had begun to swell and filled the whole of the
snake's mouth. Taking out a sharp knife and pressing the head of the
snake with his axe, he cut open its jaws so as to expose both the upper
and lower portions; by this means also he extracted the body of the
squirrel. He then showed us its poison fangs, which, on removing the
little animal, folded back into the upper jaw, on the sides of which
they were placed. The points were as sharp and fine as needles. He
then cut out from each side of the head, close to the root of the fangs,
the venom-bags.

"You see that, to enable the head to contain these bags, it is very much
broader than that of the harmless snake," he observed. "We shall find
the same breadth of head in all the venomous species. The bags contain
between them about eight drops of poison, one of which would be
sufficient, introduced into the blood, to kill a man or a horse. You
see round the base of each fang, a mass of muscular tissue