Jane (Lynch) Pringle (1811-1896)

She was the subject of a story told by Richard Grant White in Century Illustrated Magazine, 1883. She, "distinguished herself... by a strange freak. She appeared in her father's box at the opera (Rivafinoli's, I believe) with the most extraordinary bracelet ever worn by a woman, at least in this country - a small living green snake, which she kept as a pet, and which was seen not only winding itself around her beautiful arm, but (fashionable women went to the opera then always in full evening dress) over her shoulders and around her neck. This snake was her constant companion, even in bed. It was venomous, but had been deprived of its poison-glands; and she was told by the person of whom it was bought that if it were allowed to eat milk these glands would be reproduced. One morning, as she was dawdling over breakfast in bed, she looked up from a book she was reading, and saw her pet with its head plunged into the milk-jug. It was killed immediately. A strange story this; but my authority for it is the lady's sister (Mrs. Nicholas Luqueer) and my own uncle (Chandler White, first Vice-President of the Atlantic Telegraph Co.), a frequenter of the opera and familiar with New York society at that time."