hatched by means independent of | found a beautiful specimen, soft and themselves. It would be impossible complete, including even the coverfor such a tiny creature to move ing of the eyes-in short, a comabout on the rough ground old plete snake, barring the animal insnakes go over. Sometimes it side. Indeed, I thought it was a might be to protect them from the snake till it did not move, when I weather, or carry them off in time approached it considerately, and beof danger. The brown snake, fore touching it, carefully examkilled in my presence, could not ined how it could have wriggled have been influenced by fear, for itself so completely out of its skin. there had been none near her when I found that it had caught itself a suddenly approached by myself and little below the head (or shoulders, friend, and particularly as she was if I may so express myself) on a basking, as I have said, on the top knot on the stem of a small but of a low stone wall, where it was stout dry weed of the previous apparently impossible for the young year's growth. I gave it to the perones to get, unless taken there in- son who killed the snake containing side of the mother. In a state of the young ones, on his going to viscaptivity, the snake can have no it his friends in Scotland, to show apparent incentive to take her it to them, and keep for the puryoung inside of her. Although pose (as he said) of wrapping it the neck of a snake is narrow, it round any gathering, to bring it to has an immense power of disten- a head. Although a fine, it was not sion when gradually swallowing its a large specimen. prey, while retaining its powers of breathing. The female has doubtless peculiarities given her by nature for taking her young down her throat and keeping them alive there. Once down, her great distension of body furnishes them with an excellent place of safety. It has often been observed that snakes of a size not likely to be able to take care of themselves are seldom or never seen. Some of your readers may not be aware that snakes (some species at least) shed their skins late in the spring or early in the summer, although it is not known that every snake gets a new coat every year.* On the place on Long Island mentioned, where the brown snakes were very numerous, I came across a skin that had been shed apparently the previous year, as it was considerably weather-beaten and dilapidated; but a few days afterwards (about the end of May), I * All snakes doubtless shed their skins once a year; some people say oftener, with some species. I may add by way of P. S., by another mail, that I yesterday met a very intelligent man, long a farmer in Illinois, who, on being asked generally, "What about snakes?" informed me very fully in regard to them, and exactly as I have written. He says that he has often seen them, of various species, swallow their young, and that it is a very interesting sight. So quickly is it done, that it somewhat resembles a continuous glistening string passing into the mother's mouth. it takes place on the approach of wet weather and danger, and, as he supposes, when the snake wishes to He says locomote." We see in this an amazing adaptation of means to an end, perhaps as wonderful a one as is to be found in natural history. For, when the snake goes to where she deposited her eggs to begin her maternal duties proper, and, in all probability, at the moment of hatching, she would be absolutely unable to take care of, perhaps, twenty helpless creatures, emerging from eggs about an inch in length, laid by a snake about three feet long, if she did not take them inside of her, for she has no other way of providing for their safety; but, by the mutual instinct of all aboard," she can at once proceed on her travels with her family; for a snake is an animal that lives altogether in the open, on sometimes very rough ground, and only retires to hidden places on the approach of cold weather to hybernate.* In cutting open the black-snake mentioned, which was fully three feet long, I found that the string of eggs, say fifteen in number, would measure about fifteen inches in all, and were in a chamber of much greater height and width than was necessary to hold them-something apparently distinct from the stomach proper, and doubtless the receptacle for the young after being hatched outside, and which could be greatly expanded, according to the nature of snakes. Since we know that life is originated and maintained in an egg, and in a womb containing sometimes a dozen of young, it can be easily imagined that the young of a snake can have air supplied to them, tem It would be singular, indeed, if this peculiarity of snakes is not described in treatises on the natural history of the animal. I did not see it noticed in the long article in the Encyclopædia Britannica, on a hasty glance I gave it. To people inclined to doubt the facts given, I would say-how can they find eggs. that are hatched outside of the animal that laid them, returning to the inside of the same animal in the shape of complete creatures, that can help themselves in any way, excepting only what a larger growth would enable them to do, unless they entered it by the mouth ? existing in S of animals. wards of seven inches long, and so mature in their nature that they, with the true viper spirit about them, showed great alertness as soon as disengaged from the belly of the dam, twisting and wriggling about, setting themselves up, and gaping very wide when touched with a stick, and showing manifest tokens of menace and defiance," to such an extent that he compared their action to "a young cock that will spar at his adversary before his spurs are grown, and a calf or lamb that will push with their heads before their horns are sprouted.” Yet, notwithstanding that several intel The serpent Kind eat, I believe, but once a year, or rather but only just at one season of the year." [!] What he wrote really proved that the viper did dudswallow its young, for he said :"Several intelligent folks assure me that they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her helpless young down her throat on sudden S-surprise, This is very positive testimony of people having no apparent motive for imposing on him, nor likely to have been under an illusion themselves. But, in opposition to their evidence, he says: The London viper-catchers insist on it that no such thing ever hap-ligent people assured him that they pens." That is, they never saw it done, perhaps during the season of viper-trapping, which really was no testimony at all. 66 a He says that about the 24th of May, 1768, a neighbouring yeoman killed and took out of a viper chain of eleven eggs, about the size of those of a blackbird," such as I took out of an American blacksnake which swallows her young. According to American snakes this would give about two feet for the mother, which is said to be seldom found much above that length, and four-and-a-half or five inches for the young when hatched. Seven years thereafter, on the 4th of August, 1775, he himself took out of another fifteen young ones, the shortest of which was fully seven inches in length, and about the size of full-grown earth-worms. Here, then, was a phenomenon for him to solve, viz. the same animal (for argument's sake) containing a string of fifteen eggs about an inch long, lying along her back, after the nature of snakes, none of them advanced so far towards a state of maturity as to contain any rudiments of young" (to the countryman's naked eye, for White does not say that he examined them), and seventy-two days thereafter appearing inside of her as snakes up had seen a viper admit her young down her throat, he says:-" There was little room to suppose that this brood had ever been in the open air before, and that they were taken in for refuge at the mouth of the dam when she perceived that danger was approaching." And for what reason? "Because then, probably, we should have found them somewhere in the neck and not in the abdomen." That is, we might expect to find fifteen snakes seven inches and a fraction long, or fully nine feet of snakes, in the neck of the mother, that would be three feet long at the very most-in the neck, that to the eye or the imagination would hardly admit a passage for one of the young ones at such short notice as a sudden surprise would imply! How did these eggs change to such complete, large, and active snakes before birth? That is, how did a string of fifteen eggs, lying along the back of the animal, become fifteen snakes, upwards of seven inches long, so active and wicked before they were born, and so filling the abdomen of the mother that she seemed "very heavy and bloated ?” The very nature of an egg is to be laid and hatched by the animal laying it, or by the artifice of man, or by the elements. Yet White says of vipers:-"Though they are ovi parous, they are viviparous also, hatching their young within their bellies, and then bringing them forth"; perhaps drawing his conclusion from the phenomenon mentioned, and absolutely ignoring the testimony of people who had seen vipers swallow their young. It would be a curiosity in nature to find an animal that hatched an unlaid egg inside of itself; so great a curiosity as at once to be rejected unless it could be supported by evidence. Assuming, however, that the viper did it, we could understand how each of the young was nourished when inside of its own egg; but how would they be fed, or even kept alive, after leaving the eggs and entering and perhaps running about the abdomen at large? And why should snakes at least seven inches long, emerging from eggs one-seventh that length, be found unborn when they proved themselves so knowing on being forced to the light of day? Do unborn animals of any kind act in that way? And how did eggs that would yield snakes four-and-a-half or five inches long when hatched, produce ones from two-and-a-half to three inches longer before being born? And if they were born inside, what had become of the shells or rather coverings of the eggs? If they had been voided, why should not the young which they contained have followed in the same direction, and at the same time? White, by his own admission, knew little or nothing of the matter, and paid no regard to what others testified to of their own knowledge as to the swallowing of the young. He had most probably seen the snake that contained the eggs and killed the one himself containing the young, and concluded that therefore these young must have been hatched inside.* It is surprising that White should have commented on this subject so superficially and unsatisfactorily, after contemplating the eggs and the young It must therefore be held that the viper, like all animals producing eggs, is really an oviparous one, bringing forth her young like other serpents of her kind-that is, lays eggs to be hatched by the elements, and discharges her maternal duties like them by taking them inside of her on occasions, unless it can be proved otherwise by evidence that cannot be controverted. I of course mean when the animal is in her natural state and not in captivity, which would probably somewhat modify her instincts and habits. How could it be known that the eggs of vipers are hatched inside unless noticed at the time of birth, when the young and the substance that covered them emerged together, or the one (and which one?) before the other, and in the same direction? And how could it be learned that the eggs increase in maturity inside unless various vipers containing eggs are killed during the season, and a comparison be made as to their respective conditions? We would have then to ascertain where the bursting of the egg takes place-that is, inside or outside of the animal. If it takes place outside, no matter how shortly after the egg is laid, then is the viper an oviparous animal; and in that case how could we find vipers inside like those described by White, and as can be found any summer in England? Let a viper containing young, as described by White, be killed and submitted to properly qualified scientific men for inspection, and they would doubtless soon settle the question whether the young were unborn or had entered the mother by the mouth. If they found the young and the coverings of the eggs, they could say that they had been hatched inside; but if they found the young only, how as being inside of the mother. This circumstance goes a very long way to prove that he was not a scientific naturalist. could they say that they had been | so hatched, and not taken in at the mouth, in common with all the American snakes, so far as known? Thereafter they could examine the anatomy of both, and if they found both alike, what reason could they have for saying that the viper did not, and could not, swallow her young, like the American serpents, whether the bursting of the egg took place at the time of birth, or before it, or after it had been laid? Being both snakes, and conceiving eggs in the same way, with the young more or less developed in them when laid (as laid they must be), it must be held, as I have just said, that vipers are not only oviparous, but "swallowers," unless it can be proved that they are neither, which would be an exceedingly difficult if not impossible matter to do, for the most that could be said would be that it was not known, which would only prove ignorance in regard to the subject. So far from its being even plaus ible to say of White's vipers that there was "little room to suppose that the brood had ever been in the open air before," there is every reason for saying that they had been in the world for such time as enabled them to add perhaps two inches to their length, and gain considerable experience, which would account for their being so exceedingly active, like their American relations. They had simply been swallowed, but not from fear, at least immediate fear, for the mother was enjoying herself by lying in the grass and basking in the sun when killed (like the American snake on the top of a dry stone wall), having no fear for her young inside of her while she herself was safe. That is done in America for no apparent reason; perhaps merely to gratify the natural instinct of the mother, however she might feel in the event of her family quarrelling, when, I presume, she would be only too glad to drive them forth by the same power that enabled her to swallow them. I have given a form of experiment for testing whether or not vipers swallow their young, by examining a dead one. I will now explain how it might be tried in the person of a living one. Let some one procure a pregnant viper (but distinguishing the appearance from that of having swallowed an animal much thicker than herself), and confine her in an open space suitable to her natural disposition, but from which she could not escape, and watch results. If she is pregnant with eggs she will either deposit them like American snakes, or retain them, according to White's theory, to be hatched inside of her. If she lays the eggs she will return to her natural size, and continue so till the eggs are hatched and the young ones require her care, when they will either be seen with her or found inside of her, which will manifest itself in her second pregnancy, causing her to become more heavy and bloated” as they increase in size. If she is caught when pregnant with young, there will be times that they will be seen, causing a corresponding diminution in her size, and times when they will not be seen, causing her again to appear pregnant from having swallowed them. If she was pregnant with eggs, and brings forth according to White, it would not be possible, in her comparative freedom, to have a midwife present to ascertain whether the eggs were hatched inside or outside of the animal, or what became of the shells, that is, whether young and shells were voided at the same time, or which first. If, however, she came in pregnant, and suddenly produced young after remaining in her original state night and day for a considerable time (which fact never could be ascertained), then White's theory, to a certain extent, would appear correct as to the hatch |