The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-15 00:00:00

POISONOUS _REPTILES.

An interesting paper has been addressed to the
French Academy of Sciences, by M. Guyon, on the
question as to whether the poison of snakes has any
effect upon themselves or animals of their kind.
Fontana had already shown that the poison of the
asp was utterly innocuous when inoculated on
vipers of the same species ; but it remained to be
seen whether such was equally the case with other
kinds of serpents. M. Guyon, therefore, during his
stay in Martinique and the adjacent islands, made
several experiments to ascertain the effects of the
poison of reptiles upon others. In one instance he
inserted the fangs of a bothrops lanceolatus, or
lance-headed viper, 51ft. long, into the back and
tail of two other bothropes. The fangs were as full
of poison as they could hold. On the following day
he found the table on which the snakes had been
crawling about moistened with a viscuous and trans-
parent liquid, and a similar moisture was apparent
round the orifices of the wounds which had been
inflicted. This liquid, on being examined, was
found. to be poison expelled from the wounds. The
reptiles themselves displayed no symptoms of suf-
fering ; their wounds gradually healed, and for up-
wards of two months after the creatures appeared
as lively and healthy as they had been before the
experiment. In another experiment the poison of
individual
of bothropes was inoculated into one
of the same species, and with the same result. The
I animal, indeed, died six weeks after the last inocu-
lation, but this was evidently owing to the nume-
rous and deep wounds it had received. M. Guyon,
at a later period, repeated his experiments in
Algeria, on the horned. viper, the Mauritanian and
the black-tailed echidnas, &c., inoculating the poi-
son of the former into the latter, and conversely,
with the same result. M. Guyon therefore arrives
at the conclusion that the poison of serpents has no
effect either on themselves or on their class,.whether
transmitted from one individual to another of the
same species, or from that of one species to those of
11 another.

CRIME IN FRANCE.

As three soldiers of the Ist Regiment of Grena-
diers of the Guard were returning, the evening be-
fore last, in a state of intoxication, from the fete at
Boulogne to their barracks at Rueil, they got into
a quarrel with a drunken man whom they met,
and after a while declared that they would arrest
him ; but some persons who were near would
not allow him to be taken, as he had not done
anything wrong. The soldiers then became irri-
tated and drew their swords, but one of the per-
sons, a man of extraordinary strength,
the men down one after another. The soldiers,
though exasperated, went away, but soon after re-
turned, and rushed at different persons with their
attacked
them
and they
swords. One of them wounded one man.,
would probably have committed more serious mis-
chief if the people attacked had not armed them-
selves with stakes which they found in a vineyard
close at hand. With thesewthhielye
~ Help! murder !" bfeing heard
the soldiers, and after a vigorously
overpowered
and gave them into custody.
Loud cries of
the night before last in a room under the roof
occupied by a workvroman in the Rue des Dames,
at the Batignolles, a man named Coutier, residing
in an adjacent room, entered and found an elderly
man struggling with the female on the floor, and
trying to cut her throat with a large knife. Ile
dragged the man away, and placed his foot on him
to prevent him from getting up ; but as he was
without shoes, the man inflicted two wounds on his
foot with the knife. Immediately after, Coutier
wrested the knife from him, on which the man got
out of the window on to the roof, and went to
an adjacent house, in which it was known he
resided. He was sought for there, and was
found lying on the floor, with a deep wound
ie his throat, which he had evidently inflicted
himself. Ho was sent to the hospital in
custody, and it was there ascertained that his
wound was not dangerous. Medical assistance
*as also procured for the woman, and her wound
likewise turned out not to be serious. It appears
from the -woman's statement that though the man
is 60 years of age, an intimate connection had
existed between them for some time, but that as he
was of a violent character and jealous, she had been
obliged to break it off. He had often pressed her
to renew it, but she always refused. On the even
ing in question he had entered her room, the w in-
dow of which she had left open, and had entreated
her to be friends again :she, however, once more
refused, and he then attempted to murder herivi
narrated.