DISSECTOR AT WORK.

ourselves as well. Determining to become an expert in "snakeology," and educate the people to the proper knowledge of matters reptilian, Professor Surface has made an exhaustive study of the subject and has collected hundreds of snakes, which, under his direction and by a corps of enthusiastic young assistants, have been dissected, sketched, and their habits recorded, with a view to the compilation of statistics and data for the information of the citizens of the country

in general and of the scholastic institutions of Pennsylvania in particu

lar.

Here are some of the popular fallacies regarding snakes that Professor Surface declares to be entirely without foundation in fact:

Snakes do not milk COWS. It is well known among the newspaper fraternity that the country correspondent, when other news is not forthcoming and something must be sent over the wires, causes the snake milking the cow story to be trotted into the limelight. Professor Surface has thought it worth while to investigate stories of the snake that steals the milk while the farmer is sleeping, and he declares them all to be myths. "This feat," he says, "is not possible for the snake to perform, and in my opinion it never was performed."

Summed up, these are the conclusions of Professor Surface regarding various popular beliefs about the snake family: It is believed by some persons that serpents coil in a regular manner, like a coil of rope, and strike from such a coil. This is not true, and mounted specimens and drawings showing a snake in such an attitude are misleading. If a serpent

should attempt to strike from a uniform coil, like a pile of rope, it would be obliged to turn over as many times as it was coiled, in order to make a straight line to the intended victim. While reptiles do coil partially, they keep the front of the body free for striking from a zigzag or horizontal letter S position. No serpent can strike while stretched out in an extended position. No snake springs clear from the ground as it strikes, and none jumps through the air to its victim, although occasionally the blow may be delivered with such force as to turn the reptile over. These facts the professor partly gathered from keeping snakes in glass cases in his office at the department's headquarters at Harrisburg and closely watching their move

ments.

He was able to prove that no snake is able to eject, throw or spit poison, as some country people believe. The old story of the hoop snake, which is supposed to take its tail in its mouth and roll down hill like a hoop, is relegated to

COFPERHEAD.

the limbo of lies. In commenting upon this story, Professor Surface caustically remarks:

"No specimen of hoop snake could be secured by me, although a reward of