The Adventure of the Speckled Band that of Dr Roylott. Holmes and Watson arrange to spend the night in Helen's room. In darkness they wait; suddenly, a slight metallic noise and a dim light through the ventilator prompt Holmes to action. Quickly lighting a candle, he discovers on the bell cord the "speckled band"—a venomous snake. He strikes the snake with a stick, driving it back through the ventilator. Agitated, it attacks Roylott, who had been waiting for it to return after killing Helen. Holmes identifies the snake as a "swamp adder" and reveals to Watson the motive: the late wife's will had provided an annual
The problem of the speckled hen Ayers' words, speckles are enumerable only if in fact they have been enumerated. A number of philosophers analyzed the merits of this proposition. Chisholm concludes that the problem of the speckled hen emphacises the fact that there are basic propositions (synthetic propositions which do not refer beyond the content of the immediate experience) that are necessarily imprecise. The problem of the speckled hen In the theory of empirical knowledge, the problem of the speckled hen is whether a single immediate observation of a speckled hen provides a certain knowledge of the number of speckles observed. Clearly, this is not an