posed they laid eggs, like other | ones, each 16 inches, would give snakes, though this one certainly 368 inches of snake, which would brought forth her young alive.-F. doubtless make the mother thicker R. Griffith, Cumberland Pen, Ja- than ten and a half inches round maica, 8th May, 1851." the body, in her most bloated condition, as to which Mr. Griffith says nothing. If his snake had been killed when captured, the young would doubtless have been found inside of her, of about half. their size when seen by him, like those taken out of other snakes running at large. And this would have made the following remark of Mr. Gosse unnecessary :-" Is it possible that a serpent nominally oviparous might retain the eggs within the oviduct until the birth of the young when circumstances were not propitious for their deposition?" That at least is not probable. It would certainly be interesting to confine snakes pregnant with eggs, with no means of depositing them, to be hatched by the soil or by incubation, and carefully watch results; but it would be necessary to know that they were really pregnant with eggs, which would be a difficult, if not impossible, matter to do; so that the only principle to guide the person making the experiment would be to find the shells of the eggs along with the young as they made their appearance, to feel sure that the mother contained eggs to begin with. Gosse is right when he says:-" If there was no error in the observation of this case, it must be considered as an aberration of habit;" but very wrong when he adds, in the appendix, that, "Mr. Hill obtained from his informant the following clear and interesting details of the matter which render the fact [of the yellow boa being viviparous indubitable, however strange," for, as I have said before, he presented no evidence whatever that the snakes were born there at all.

We have here no evidence whatever that these snakes were there and then "brought forth alive." The language used would not necessarily imply that this snake produced young from a womb, like mammals (which no snake does), but merely that she did not lay eggs. If they were hatched inside, what had become of the shells of the eggs? These could not have been missed, and as Mr. Griffith says nothing about them we must conclude that the young were not then born at all, but let out of the mouth, having been hatched by incubation and swallowed before capture, and let out at night or during the day when all was quiet, and quickly swallowed on the approach of any one, without being noticed, till nature could hold out no longer, when they were let out for good, leading perhaps, directly or indirectly, to the death of both mother and young. This boa must have had her young long before the 19th of October, perhaps before the 19th of July, like snakes in America, those as far South as Louisiana being hatched not later than the 1st of August. How did it happen that these snakes, produced by a small one six feet one inch, were 16 inches long, when others often taken alive out of other snakes (we will assume of the same length) were only from 8 to to 10 inches-about half the size of Mr. Griffith's? And how did it happen that eggs 1 inch by inch, like those examined by Mr. Gosse, yielded snakes 16 inches by 1 inch, as found by Mr. Griffith? That is, how could these be eleven times the length and fully the width of the eggs from which they had just emerged? The mother was 73 inches long, and the 23 young

ΙΟ

Mr.

If people in Jamaica will make experiments they will doubtless

66

find that the yellow boa, like many | circumstantial, exact and logical, in other serpents, is a swallower;" his information, to make it of any but they should bear in mind that use in settling a question like the a naturalist cannot be too full and one under consideration.

PRO

AMERICAN SNAKES.*

College, assures me that he has seen the act, and believes with us. I will return your papers at an early date."

ROFESSOR G. BROWN | Sheffield Scientific School, Yale GOODE, of the University of Middletown, Connecticut, caused a notice to appear in an Agricultural Paper, having a wide circulation in the United States, asking for information on the subject of snakes swallowing their young. I have a letter from him, dated "Headquarters U. S. Fish Commission, Peak's Island, Portland, Maine, July 21st, 1873," in which he says:

I have in my possession over fifty letters from all parts of the United States giving the testimony of persons who have not only found the young in the throat of the parent, but have seen them run into her mouth. I am not getting up a formal discussion of the subject, but am thinking of reading a short paper at the meeting of the American Association, next month. I find that many of our naturalists seem determined not to believe in it, yet I cannot but think that the evidence sustains our side. May I use your name, if necessary, in connection with this question? Professor Sydney J. Smith, of the

It has often occurred to me that the female snake must have two throats-one for ordinary purposes and the other to give a passage to her young, or one throat for a certain length, leading by a valve, as it were, to another that enters the chamber that contained the eggs, and which doubtless becomes the receptacle of the young when hatched. It will be difficult to find this passage unless when it is in use, for it will become so contracted at other times as to escape any observation that is not very minutely made. Mr. Goode speaks of the young being found in the throat of the parent, which is evidently a slip in a hasty note, for it is in the body they take refuge— apparently in the chamber that contained the eggs, which, as I said on a former occasion, appears to be distinct from the stomach proper.

by him before the Science Conven- | Palmer, of the Smithsonian Institution, tion at Portland, in the State of the Rev. C. L. Loomis, M.D., of MidMaine, as taken from the New York Tribune, of the 27th of August:

In this paper allusion is made to the gastric juice of the mother. On the occasion mentioned, I said I was under the impression that she must have two throats, or one with two passages, one passage leading to the stomach proper, and the other to the chamber that contains the eggs, apparently where the young ones take refuge. We are also told that

In this abstract allowance must be made for incorrectness or incompleteness in reporting; still I may make a few remarks on some points contained in it. I said, on a former occasion, that a string of eggs lying along the back" twenty-seven [people] saw the of a black-snake appeared to be contained in a roomy chamber distinct from the stomach proper. The young I took out of a garter snake were not lying in a string, like these eggs, but filled up about the middle third of the body, about equally distant from the head and tail-not mixed up in any way with the entrails, but presenting somewhat the appearance of a nest or bag-full of caterpillars found on a tree; if we imagine it of an elongated shape, and the larvæ lying in more than one length longwise. Both the black and garter snakes are beyond question egg-laying or oviparous, and "swallowers," for their eggs have been found in the ground in all stages of maturity, and the young have been seen running into and been taken out of the mother, as I have on more than one occasion mentioned. It thus seems odd to be told in the abstract that "all these snakes [including the garter one] are known to be ovoviviparous, while no well attested case [of swallowing] occurs among the truly oviparous;" and that "it yet remains to be shown that the habit is shared by egg-laying snakes." There is some confusion in the paper itself, or in the abstract made of it, on that head. The real value of it is that it proves that many kinds of snakes swallow their young," and bears out what I said on a former occasion :-" I lay

young living within the parent, but as they did not see them enter, the testimony [as to their having been swallowed] is at least dubious.' How could that be doubted if the young were hatched from eggs deposited in the ground? And if the species were viviparous, how could a chain of eggs, in twenty-seven instances, change into a stomach full of young, with no remains of the shells of the eggs from which they were hatched, in the face of so many such serpents having been actually seen to swallow their young, to say nothing of the uncertainty of how or where the eggs were hatched? It would be interesting to know on what authority so many kinds of snakes are classed as viviparous. If it is merely because they have been killed with young inside of them, the evidence would not hold good in the face of their swallowing their young. I know no way to determine the fact but by taking the eggs out of the snake and examining their condition; and then there would be the question whether the eggs are hatched inside or outside of the mother, or in the act of parturition. As in mathematics we require to know some things to demonstrate others, so in snakes swallowing their young, it is not necessary for a man

* See page 29.

CHARLES WATERTON AS A NATURALIST.†