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by the mouth. On the occasion mentioned I described how the egg of a garter snake was hatched on a table, that is, how the snake burst it and uncoiled itself out of it; and I presented to the doubters of vipers swallowing their young the following phenomena:- If fifteen or twenty eggs, lying along the back of a snake, were hatched inside in the way described, we would have, on a small scale, something worse than an earthquake. Or, imagine the eggs hatched at birth like the bursting of a shell at the mouth of a gun, or sometime after leaving it, and returning to the gun, without being taken into it, and we would have the doctrine of anti-swallowers well illustrated." Chambers says that "the young are produced in the early part of the summer, from twelve to twenty or more at a birth;" while White of Selborne testified that eggs having no trace of fœtus in them were taken out of one about the 27th May, and young ones out of another on the 4th August. If both are right, and the propagation of vipers is uniform as to time, with no second brood, and if the seasons were the same, we could conclude that the eggs come rapidly to maturity; and that White's vipers (upwards of seven inches long) were perhaps six weeks old when forcibly taken out of the mother. I lay it down as an axiom that we must hold that all snakes swallow their young, till the opposite can be proved of any particular species of them.

I may add that the United States are a fine field for the study of snakes, as they are still to be found close up to even large cities like New York. They were and are yet numerous around Hoboken, opposite, in the State of New Jersey. Snake Hill," the site of the county poor-house, got its name from having been a great resort of many kinds of them. The snakes of a harmless kind that annoy the American

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housewife the most, in some places, are the black and milk species. The first will gobble up the eggs of hens that lay, or "steal their nests,' in the woods, or the chickens so hatched that become wild after some time, requiring trouble to reclaim them, like kittens born in a stable or where they cannot be seen and handled. The other snake is said to steal into the premises and drink the milk; hence its name. Snakes seem loth to go into winter quarters, and apparently resort to expedients to delay it. On the railroad, close up to the petroleum dock at Weehawken, near where Burr shot Hamilton, they have been found lying along the rails and sometimes across them, for the heat of the sun concentrated on the iron, when the train would come quickly along and cut in two those lying across the rails in a partly lethargic state. As the season approaches its close they are easily killed in the woods. Four men, one of whom I am acquainted with, set out one day on a nutting expedition in the neighbourhood, but not succeeding in that, turned it into snake-hunting. In a short time they killed thirty-six, comprising black and garter snakes, and another species the name of which they did not know. They found them all basking on the warmest spots, and more or less near each other as regards species. A snake's winter den is often discovered by a straggler going late to it. On one occasion a den, under the root of a tree, was found in this way. By the count it contained seventy snakes, torpid and "lumped up together, in about the following proportions: black, 4; adder, 2; and garter, 1. Another den contained about thirty, but mostly adders. Sometimes a snake is overtaken by the winter and frozen in the woods. A son of the Negro I have mentioned, when bringing "brush" into the house for kindling or "brightening" fires,

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included in the lot a fine piece, a little like a black walking-stick; and very soon thereafter his mother was like to go into convulsions owing to a snake being in the house and

acting like sop's viper, which caused the husband great surprise before he managed to see how it had got there at that time of the year.

I

SNAKES CHARMING BIRDS.*

HAVE frequently noticed paragraphs in American newspapers on snakes charming birds, but I never witnessed the phenomenon, nor incidentally met one who had, perhaps from the subject of snakes not being alluded to, till lately, when the fact came up on that question being discussed. One of the parties is an acquaintance of sixteen years' standing, and the other the father of another, both thoroughly reliable, and unknown to each

other.

The first, when "gunning" in the woods, about the middle of September, had his attention arrested by a bird, evidently in great distress, chirping and hovering close to the top of a bush nearly nine feet high, with a clear stem of from three to four feet. It seemed to be attracted by some object, which turned out to be a snake, whose head protruded at times from among the leaves, and was within twelve or fifteen inches of the bird, which kept gradually but steadily approaching it, when the snake was shot, and the bird flew away. The other gentleman, when passing, in June, along a road having an abruptly-falling wooded slope at the side of it, noticed, on a little lower level than himself, a bird pretty well out on a branch of a tree (having a clear stem of about eight feet, and about ten inches in diameter), chirping and fluttering, * Dated April 2d, 1873; printed May

3d.

|

and moving from side to side; and facing it, on the same branch, towards the trunk, at about twenty inches from it, was a snake, moving its head in a similar way. On a piece of wood being thrown at them, the snake came down the tree, and the bird flew off.

In both instances the snakes were of the black species, about four feet long, and the intended prey catbirds (about the size of an English thrush), so called from their cry somewhat resembling that of a cat. The impulse one has on meeting a snake is to avoid it or kill it. But in a case like the present, a naturalist would have "become a party to the suit," by quietly approaching as near as possible and patiently seeing the thing through, and then killing the snake. And that could have been easily done, for the two said that the birds and snakes were so engrossed as to seem unconscious of their presence, and did not move till actually disturbed. The first was within about ten feet and the other about twenty feet of the scene, and paused about two minutes before they realised what was passing before them. The circumstance of the snakes and birds being of the same species respectively, should enable us to judge of part of the phenomenon by comparison. In the first case there was no nest on the tree to attract the bird to it, and most likely none in the second; and there

can be no doubt that the birds were

on the trees when the snakes | characteristic of the snake catching climbed up to them and began their its prey is doubtless the most charming, the various stages of wonderful one to be found within which are unfortunately left to the the range of natural history, and ilimagination. Neither gentleman lustrates that she is, in the language could see the "countenance" of the of the Scriptures," more subtile than reptile, which doubtless presented any beast of the field;" and is a to its victim a yawning abyss that proof, besides that of her peculiar threw out forked lightning, and had way of taking care of her young, a glowing coal on each side of it, that she has received from the sufficient to paralyse any simple Creator a large amount of wisdom bird. Very probably the snakes on and understanding. I think I have climbing the trees had first amused seen notices of her also charming the birds by their serpentine move- rabbits, squirrels, and other animals Iments, and gradually magnetised that she could not easily seize in the them, like the one on the outer ordinary way; and that is not unpart of the branch, till, perhaps, likely to be the case with at least making a premature effort to seize partly-grown animals. She has no its prey, it drove it off the tree in occasion, however, to cast her the other case, which did not break glamour" over the frog, for she can the spell, for the bird most probably easily catch it, giving occasion to a returned to its charmer, and if left great noise on the part of the vicalone would very soon have drop- tim, which attracts people acquaintped into its mouth. The shot and ed with her peculiarities in that rethe throwing of the piece of wood, spect, and leads to her destruction, however, completely broke the en- although the noise of the frog chantment. ceases as it resigns itself to its fate. The snake is a dainty creature in regard to her feeding, for she must catch what she eats; and so particular is she about the freshness of her food that she swallows it alive, except in the case of the constrictor, which first crushes it in her folds and then swallows it.

The general nature of such a phenomenon, doubtless, somewhat resembles that of a timid person suddenly encountering a large and ferocious beast from which there is no escape, and rushing towards it in the frenzy of the moment, after the nature of a nightmare. This

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л could. Has the common English snake, while in a state of nature, never been seen with her young? Or has no one had one which had a progeny when in captivity, to know how the young are hatched, and whether the mother shows no concern in regard to them? It is possible that evidence on these points cannot be found in either of these ways, but it would not on that account follow that the mother's labour was only to lay the eggs and cover them up. Mr. B. says she deposits the eggs in "a dunghill or heap of decaying vegetable matter," without saying how far from the surface, and how covered up. This snake, I presume, is not, and cannot be, either a digger or scraper, like the turtle when she deposits her eggs in the sand, or when she hybernates; which peculiarity is also shown by the young as they leave the eggs. How, then, do the young snakes emerge from the stuff that surrounds, and, doubtless, covers them? According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, crocodiles are oviparous, and bury their eggs in the sand, and the female remains in the vicinity to dig them up on the day that the young ones break the shell;" and of the St. Domingo crocodile it says :-" At the time of the escape of the young, the female comes to scrape away the earth and let them out. She conducts, defends, and feeds them by disgorging her own food for about three months." And, according to Audubon, the female alligator watches near the spot where her eggs are deposited, covered with rubbish and mud, and leads the young to the lake. In the propagation of fish we can easily understand why the mother leaves the eggs to their fate; and the same may be said in regard to some insects and the frog family, on account of the various stages of development through which they pass, and also for the reason of the immense number of eggs laid, which

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would prevent the mother taking care of them all. But the English snake, large as her progeny sometimes is, is doubtless perfectly able to act the part of a mother to them, like the adder and the American snakes, which take care of their young, even receiving them inside of them. Besides, the English snake, like them, deposits her eggs in her habitat, and is never far from them; and the natural conclusion would be, that she visits her nest and removes, or helps to remove, the matter surrounding the eggs, and takes the young under her care for a time, however short. Does anyone know, for certainty, that she does not do so?

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What Mr. Buckland says of the English snake applies well to those in America. The shell of the egg is of a beautiful white colour, like a common hen's egg, and feels like a very soft white kid-glove. If we cut open these eggs just before they are hatched, the young snakes will come out quite lively and attempt to escape. I tried this experiment last summer." It is very unlikely that American snakes should take the great care they do of their young, while the English one does nothing further than lay the eggs. The American snakes are doubtless "in at the birth," and assist on the occasion, for how else could they mother the progeny? Would they likely do that with any covey of young snakes that might come in their way? I gave, on a former occasion, an instance of a man on Long Island killing an old snake (doubtless the mother) which kept hovering about a nest of eggs at the. point of hatching, which he found in a fence when repairing it.

Mr. Buckland also says::- -"I have been credibly informed that a gentleman, fond of natural history, while taking a ramble on the coast of Essex, killed a viper full of eggs. He took out his penknife and let out a string of eggs fourteen in

number. In each of these was a young adder, perfectly formed, and enveloped in a glutinous fluid. The little creatures, although they had never seen the light before, raised themselves up and evinced an inclination to bite." These eggs were apparently ready, or nearly ready, to be laid, or the young hatched, although "enveloped in a glutinous fluid" after being taken out of the eggs, having thus two coverings, as the description would imply. They differed in that respect from those taken by White of Selborne out of another, which were not enveloped in anything; and which makes it remarkable that he was not struck with the phenomenon of a "string of eggs changing into an abdomen crowded with young upwards of seven inches in length;" and could see nothing in it but that "some snakes are actually born alive, being hatched within the body of the mother." This still leaves the question an open one, whether the eggs of the viper are hatched inside or outside

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of the mother, or in the act of parturition. Mr. Buckland does not say how long the young vipers were, nor the time of year found, to compare them with White's, which were taken out on the 4th August.

The evidence in regard to the hatching of the turtle, or sea-tortoise, would seem to be that the mother is not present on the occasion, but leaves the young to themselves, although in Figuier's Reptiles and Birds we find the following:-"Under the fostering care of their mother those which have escaped the birds of prey on their way to the sea." The same point, I think, requires to be definitely settled in regard to river, land and mud tortoises, which live, deposit their eggs, and hybernate in the same locality, as distinguished from the sea-tortoise, which swims many hundreds of miles from land, and, so far as known, does not hybernate, for the apparent reason that its tropical or semi-tropical habitat does not require it.

MR. GOSSE ON THE JAMAICA BOA SWALLOWING HER YOUNG.*

Μ'

when first discovered, but now, through exposure to the air,

R. GOSSE, in his Natural- in the centre of a low but wide ist's Sojourn in Jamaica, heap of pulverised earth, in which 1851, page 314, in describing the the yam tuber is planted, discovered yellow boa in that island, says that by the snake crawling out of a hole it commonly attains a length of in the side of it just wide enough eight or ten feet, and a diameter of to admit her. These eggs were two and a half inches in the thick-"long oval, 1 in. by in., plump est part of the body, and alludes to others of the lengths of six and nine feet by measure. All his authorities-black as well as white-agree that this snake lays eggs, and hatches them by incubation, which he proved by personal experiment. Six eggs were brought to him, which were taken out of a large chamber, well lined with trash,

shrunken in at the sides." One of them he opened, and found a snake in it, comparatively lifeless, owing, apparently, to the length of exposure to which it had been subjected,

* Dated June 26th, 1873; printed August 30th.

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