Snakes: Curiosities and Wonders of Serpent Life

by Catherine Cooper Hopley

In the seventeenth century, when travellers were visiting for the first time the newly-settled colonies in America and Africa, and when the early explorers in various parts of the world were sending home stuffed specimens of animals (in the days when taxidermy, like other sciences, was in its infancy), a stuffed snake was furnished with a huge, broad, fleshy tongue, big enough to crowd its entire mouth, minus teeth and gums.[33] Whether this broad tongue was to favour the delusion of ‘licking,’ or whether the licking was presupposed from the look of the tongue, we cannot say, but that the stuffed specimens did encourage the delusion is clear.

Our Philosophical Society, founded about the middle of that century, and the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ of those days record the first arrival of tropical serpents in England, and the marvellous beliefs concerning them. From them we learn, nevertheless, that many things said to be ‘new to science’ in our own time, were not unknown two centuries ago.

Passing by a large number of writers on snakes, who, being convinced that the tongue neither ‘stings’ nor ‘licks’ nor ‘aids in hissing,’ and who, therefore, cursorily dismiss it with, ‘the use of the tongue is not known,’ let us thoroughly examine for ourselves this mysterious organ; and this we can do with the assistance of those who have devoted careful attention to the subject.

Quoting first our English authorities, Dr. J. E. Gray tells us: ‘Tongue very long, retractile into a sheath at its base. Apex forked, very long, slender, and tapering.’

Says Dr. Günther: ‘Tongue long, vermiform, forked; an organ of touch; frequently and rapidly exserted to examine an object. The slightest provocation brings the tongue into play.’

Rymer Jones, in his Organization of the Animal Kingdom, tells us that ‘in snakes the bulk of the tongue is reduced to the utmost extent. The whole organ seems converted into a slender, bifid instrument of touch, and is covered with a delicate membrane.’ Again, in Todd’s Cyclopedia of Anatomy, the same writer says that ‘the tongue of a snake seems to perform functions, the nature of which is not so obvious’ (as that of some other reptiles).

Der Hœven (Clark’s translation) tells us ‘the tongue of a snake is an organ of feeling or tact, and much used, as the antennæ of insects.’

It will be observed that while no two of the above writers use precisely the same words, each helps us to picture the tongue more accurately, and we glean from each some new particular. The Encyclopedia Britannica, after telling us ‘the use of the tongue is not exactly known,’ adds, ‘they (the snakes) are continually lancing it into the air, and may possibly in this way gather moisture from grass or herbage’ (alluding to the question of ‘drinking,’ see chap. iv.).

Professor Owen still further defines it as a pair of muscles, or a double muscle partly connected and partly free. The reader will prefer the learned Professor’s own words, notwithstanding the slight repetition.

In his Anatomy of the Vertebrates, p. 463, after describing the prehensile character of the tongue in some reptiles, notably the toad and the chameleon, he says: ‘In serpents the tongue takes no other share in the prehension of food than by the degree in which it may assist in the art of drinking. It is very long, slender, cylindrical, protractile, consisting of a pair of muscular cylinders in close connection along the two basal thirds, but liberated from each other, and tapering each to a point at the anterior third; these are in constant vibration when the tongue is protruded, and are in great part withdrawn with the undivided body of the tongue into a sheath when the organ is retracted.’ The pair of parallel muscles can be distinguished in the largest of the accompanying illustrations, viz. the tongue of a Jamaica boa of about 8 feet long. It was cut out and given me immediately after the death of the reptile, and while soft and flexible was carefully copied. The hair-like points diminish to an almost invisible fineness impossible to represent with pen or pencil. The slender little tongue is that of the young Jararaca; and the shortest is that of the African viperling. I have drawn only as much as is usually exserted when in use. The entire tongues are much longer, of a pale flesh tint, and somewhat thicker towards the root. It is observable that the organs, like their possessors, are either shorter and stouter, or longer and more slender.