necessary that they should turn while confined in their place of refuge, but that turn they must when they leave it. I gave an instance of their running out of a brown striped snake after the Long Islander killed her. I give another in the adder, noticed by a very trustworthy young friend, who saw several young ones run out of the mother, when lying on a road fatally injured by some one, mashed and helpless. Having an aversion to snakes, he did not examine her otherwise than when passing, but he distinctly saw the young ones coming out of the mouth. We can only conjecture in regard to the physical circumstances of the mother swallowing her young. She can doubtless permit and refuse admission, by simply opening and shutting her mouth when she ceases to swallow them, doubtless considerably, if not long, before she casts them off altogether, as all animals do with their young. Perhaps there is nothing worthy of special notice in the anatomy of the throat or stomach to receive, reject, or retain young of a certain age, if we judge from the fact of the young running out after the mother is killed, unless it should be that nature provides her with the instinct of giving a passage in her last gasp for the escape of her progeny. The circumstances under which the young enter the mother should influence them in their movements when inside; for, if they enter under the influence of fear, they will naturally be on the qui vive what to do when there, and so turn inside to be ready, if taken in the rear, to run out as instinctively as they ran in. There is a phrase in the letter of R. S. F. to which I object. He speaks of its being a theory" that snakes swallow their young. The right expression is that it is a fact. For example, as regards the black and brown striped or garter snake in particular, we have eggs taken out of them, and eggs found in the ground when ready or nearly ready to hatch, and then the young found in the mother. Should not that satisfy any reasonable person that the young were swallowed? To that add that the young have been seen to run out of the mother when killed; and, to crown all, that they have been seen to run into her, and have been taken out of her by the same people—all of which establish it as a fact, and not as a theory, that snakes swallow their young. If R. S. F. does not know how snakes are brought into the world and taken care of in the first stage of their existence, and can refer to no one who does, why should he object to what I have written on the subject? If he admits that the snake lays a "string of eggs," how can he doubt that the chamber that contained them can also hold their contents, to say nothing of the extra room when the eggs were there, and the further expansion of the animal when the young are received inside? The turning inside would seem to be the easiest part of the phenomenon; nor can there be any difficulty in believing that the young can be kept alive, after the exceedingly mature and lively vipers taken by White of Selborne out of a mother. I avail myself of this opportunity to suggest that Mr. Buckland should give us some information regarding his viper and her progeny, embraced under the following heads: When, on what kind of ground, where, how, and by whom caught, and how carried to their present place of keeping? What were the mother and young ones doing, and how far from each other were they when seen and caught? What resistance did the old one make, and how did she defend her young, and how did they act, on the occasion? And how did it happen that the family were bagged at the same time? Or, how many of them were caught, and how many escaped, and how did | family and the family towards her, they escape? What was the length and how towards her keeper and of the mother and progeny when others, and the same in regard to caught? How have they at vari- the young? with a detailed account ous times been housed or kept? of all other particulars noticed of If exposed to the air, how did they the mother and young since their appear in warm, wet, and cold capture. Did the old one shed her weather? How watered and fed, skin, and, if so, how and when? and particularly, how the young What are the seasons during which ones were watered and fed? How people from London do and do not has the mother behaved towards the catch vipers? "N° SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG.* O ox casts its hide so that it can be picked up and made boots of, no horse swallows a mouthful as wide if not twice as wide as its body, and no sow on the approach of danger receives her infantile grunters inside of her; therefore no snake does any of these things." "If I were told that a snake receives her young inside of her, I would not believe it on any evidence, for the reason that I do not understand how it could be done, or what purpose it would serve." Apply this style of reasoning to the communication of D. of Yorktown, Virginia, printed in Land and Water on the 1st February, and you have a pretty fair description of what is the production of one who is evidently not an American. He advances nothing of his own knowledge nor of that of others. Indeed he says, "I am not familiar with the supposed young-swallowing snakes a sufficient reason for him to have kept silent on the subject; but he adds, "I have often observed other kinds"-without saying what kinds, or what he has noticed of them. I doubt not he has seen snakes in a field, or crossing a road, or along a fence, but that seems to be the extent of his knowledge of them. His ideas have evi dently been culled from printed matter, and intermixed with crude suppositions of his own, and then put forth in a manner that entitles him to little ceremony on being. taken notice of, particularly when he speaks of the "mist that surrounds myself and others in the matter of snakes," basing his remarks on the detailed and circumstantial evidence of several people on snakes swallowing their young, contained in my paper printed on the 21st December. The affidavits of twenty people of the highest credibility as to the fact would apparently have no effect on him. He is evidently one of those people who will dispute anything, and contradict anyone, like a man I knew who contradicted even death (for he was not dying, not he) till death came along and contradicted him. He says that the egg-laying species, like the American black-snake (and he makes no exceptions), are never seen in company with their young, which are never found inside of them (so far as he knows), and that they abandon their eggs * Dated February 22d, 1873. own width. "Is there any special adaptation in the gullet of the viper that enables it to swallow, on an emergency, with lightning rapidity?" I dare say, none is necessary to enable an average-sized rattlesnake to swallow young "about the size of a quill." The Frenchman doubtless under-estimated their size, owing to the distance (short as it might have been) and the extreme quickness of the creatures, that would prevent an accurate idea being formed of their dimensions. I am not aware of the throat of a snake having been examined to see whether it could allow an instant passage for her young. There is nothing to justify us in supposing it could not, especially at the time nature calls for it. If a throat were examined, it should be that of a snake that was alleged or supposed to have swallowed her progeny. when laid, and that it would be im- | mal twice or perhaps three times their possible for them to recognize their progeny, even if aware of the probable period of hatching, and that their services are not needed to protect their offspring or feed them. It would have been interesting if he had told us how he learned all that, or how most of it could be ascertained by any one. Let the reader imagine a person in the sheerest wantonness doggedly maintaining the opposite of what a hundred men could testify to, and he will have a good illustration of the action, and what seems to be the character, of this one. He goes on to say that it is only the class producing "living young," including the English viper and the American rattlesnake, to which attaches the idea of swallowing their young; whereas the popular belief in America is that "snakes," without regard to species, do it, while there are few neighbourhoods in which one if not several people cannot be easily found who can testify to it as a fact, and very few indeed from whom something about snakes cannot be learned. In Rees' Cyclopædia we find the following:-" Palisot Beauvois thus relates the fact we allude to Having perceived a rattlesnake at some distance, I approached as gently as possible, when on lifting my hand to strike her, she sounded her rattle, opened her mouth, and received into it five small serpents, about the size of a quill. I retreated and concealed myself, when the animal, thinking the danger at an end, opened her mouth and let out her progeny. When I appeared again, they immediately took to the same retreat." The editor adds: He had heard this fact from American planters, and it has been since confirmed by other travellers." D. says: If there is one marked peculiarity in the race generally, it is the extreme slowness with which they swallow." Certainly, when they take in an ani I pick up reliable information on the subject of snakes by simply making casual inquiries among people with whom I am or get acquainted. One gentleman killed on Staten Island an adder, that was very full about the body, and he put his foot on her head, and with a stick pressed her towards the tail, and forced twenty-one eggs out of her. They had the ordinary softness and apparent strength of snakes' eggs, and the same coloura creamy or dirty white — but showed a darkish substance or body inside, as seen through a dull transparency, doubtless the young well on towards maturity; but unfortunately the eggs were not opened to see what the contents were. This opinion is strengthened by the fact that eggs taken out of the same species by another acquaintance did not present the same appearance, owing doubtless to the fœtus not being developed in them to the same extent. It was about the 15th July, that the eggs were pressed out of the adder, and about | ing lifted, the young snakes (often the 1st August (but not the same year) the same gentleman saw, about twenty feet from him, another adder and five or six young ones (there might have been others inside of her) about six inches long (so far as he could judge), enjoying themselves, when he came suddenly upon them. He at once made for her to kill her, when his hand was immediately stayed by the young ones entering the mother in such a hurry that he could not see the tail of one from the head of another, for they "flew" in, as he expressed it. Immediately after they were taken in, the mother made off and got into a hole near a fence-post, where he could not get her, to his great disappointment, as he wished to take the young ones out of her. Another friend (a lady this time) saw a black - snake swallow her young; and a very respectable-looking and well-off Negro, whom I met in the company of him who saw the adder swallow her young, also saw a black-snake do the same. All these, and others who have testified to similar facts, are willing to make affidavits to that effect. What then become of D.'s remarks about snakes swallowing their young being "mists" and "delusions," and the other incoherent ideas in his communication, which I would not have noticed but for its appearing in Land and Water, and also for the reason that it furnishes the opportunity for saying something more on the subject. I learned the other day that the young of black and brown striped or garter snakes (and most likely other kinds) are found by themselves under stones and stumps of trees, doubtless left there by the mother when she goes out to forage or enjoy herself, relieved of the care of her large progeny. Several people, whom I know intimately, testify to this fact, for they have often found them under stones. On these be about the size of new-born ones) are found neatly stowed away, with no room for the old one, and no remains of the eggs from which they were hatched. On being disturbed they at once scatter, if not immediately crushed by the foot or otherwise destroyed. There is no doubt of the extremely young ones being placed there by the mother for a special purpose, and that it is only at times she takes them abroad with her. Excepting for the purpose of hybernating, the only occasions a snake has for a hole is to find shelter from the weather or danger; and she will be more solicitous in that respect when she has young, like the adder mentioned.* D. advances it as a reason against the mother swallowing her young, the inconvenience of the load she would have to carry, which would be as sound an argument against her shedding her skin, or gorging herself with a meal two and perhaps three times her own width, both of which she does in her usual haunts. I have never met people who saw snakes shed their skins, but many who killed them when gorged with a meal. One I killed with a live frog in its mouth, when it made a feeble effort to escape to cover, pushing its prey before it, and apparently unable and unwilling to relieve itself of its burden. A friend saw, from a window, at a distance of about twenty feet, an adder about thirty inches long moving slowly towards a medium-sized toad, which stood motionless, as if paralyzed, and facing it at about eighteen inches from it. He immediately sought his hat and went outside, but could find no toad. He, however, killed the snake, and took out of it a toad, not completely dead, and nearly half-way down its body. The snake made no effort to escape or defend itself, but seemed * See note at page 10. her young inside of her is a ques- torpid; and the time that elapsed | young." That the snake receives could not have exceeded two minutes. As to the inconvenience to a snake from having swallowed her young, it could hardly be greater than in the case of White's viper (or any similar one to be found any summer in England), which, although probably little more than two feet long, yet contained in the abdomen fifteen young ones, the shortest of which was fully seven inches in length; it making little difference whether the young had been swallowed, or had not yet been born, according to White's theory. And that disposes of D.'s assertion that "no competent naturalist has ever found young vipers in the stomach of the mother;" which assertion is as unfounded as his other one, that the "egg-laying American snakes are never found with young inside of them." He further remarks:Physiologists say there is no physical obstacle to the supposed habit [of swallowing the young] and the cumulative testimony of many witnesses would compel us to receive it as an established fact." Then why reject it for the odd reason that "experience warns us, on the other hand, of the extreme liability of untrained observers to be misled by preconceived opinions," when such observers have, in almost every instance, no preconceived opinions or theories on the subject-most of them not even the capacity to form them-but narrate merely what they have seen, and in return find their observations not merely doubted, but discredited and disputed by people full of "preconceived opinions," and empirics in natural history. What reason could any one advance against snakes swallowing their young, beyond the one I have mentioned, viz.: "No sow on the approach of danger receives her infantile grunters inside of her; therefore no snake does it with her D. also maintains the old theory, as if he knew it to be a fact, that the eggs of vipers are hatched inside, and says that any one who does not know it as a fact is in a "mist." Chambers' Encyclopædia speaks of the "eggs probably bursting in the act of parturition." Either must be proved to be a fact before being received as such; and if neither can be proved it must be held that the eggs are laid and then hatched. In my paper printed on the 11th January, I gave an argument against their being hatched inside, and I should like to see one in favour of the theory. And if it happens that the "eggs of vipers burst in the act of parturition," it would also be interesting to see an argument in favour of well-grown and active vipers being found inside of the mother, unless they entered her |