The Adventure of the Speckled Band the snake wrong, a theory that the swamp adder was an artificial hybrid between the Mexican Gila monster ("Heloderma suspectum") and "Naja naja". His speculation suggests that Doyle might have hidden a double-meaning in Holmes' words. What Holmes said, reported by Watson, was "It is a swamp adder, the deadliest snake in India"; but Klauber suggested what Holmes really said was "It is a "samp-aderm", the deadliest skink in India." "Samp-aderm" can be translated "snake-Gila-monster": "Samp" is Hindi for snake, and the suffix "aderm" is derived from "heloderm", the common or vernacular name of the Gila monster generally used by
The Grasshopper (short story) The Grasshopper (short story) "The Grasshopper" () is an 1892 short story by Anton Chekhov. On 12 September 1891 Viktor Tikhonov, who had just become the editor-in-chief of "Sever", asked Chekhov in a letter to write a story for his magazine. Chekhov agreed but in an 11 October letter informed Tikhonov that he had not yet decided on either story's title or even what it would be about, telling him, "you can [promise the subscribers] something that will be called either 'A Story' or 'Ordinary People', both would be spot on." Chekhov set out to work on it on 21