1906.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 419 



ON SOME REPTILIAN FREAKS FROM INDIANA. 



BY W. S. BLATCHLEY. 



Cases of deformity or malformation are seemingly much less common 

 among wild forms of life than among mankind or his domestic animals. 

 One often sees or hears of two-headed calves, five-legged pigs and fom-- 

 legged chickens, but "freaks" among wild mammals, birds and reptiles 

 come to notice but seldom. In the literature on herpetology at my 

 command I can find only the following records of malformation among 

 reptiles and batrachians in the United States. 



Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, in the early part of the nineteenth century, 

 published an article entitled "Facts and considerations showing that 

 the Two-Headed Snakes of North America and other parts of the 

 World are not individuals of a distinct race, but universally Monsters,"^ 

 in which he recorded the finding in Genesee county. New York, of 120 

 of the young of a female black snake, Bascanion constrictor L., among 

 which were "three monsters, one with two distinct heads; one with a 

 double head and only three eyes; and one with a double skull, furnished 

 with three eyes and a single lower jaw; this last had two l)odies." 

 These three specimens he figiu-ed on an accompanying plate. 



Dr. Mitchill noted that records of two-headed snakes had been made 

 up to that date from the "West Indian and Polynesian islands; in 

 Great Britain and in Italy, ' ' and that those from the foreign countries 

 had been supposed to ' ' constitute a race of their own and propagate 

 their kind in regular succession. ' ' His paper, based on the finding in 

 New York of three individuals among one litter, was written to con- 

 trovert this foolish supposition. He added that ' ' serpents are destitute 

 of limbs, and are consequently incapable of monstrosity in feet, legs, 

 hands and arms, either by defect, redundancy or malformation; when 

 it happens, therefore, monstrosity must be in the head or tail, and the 

 head is most frequently the seat of it. " 



Prof. Jeffries Wyman recorded the occurrence in Massachusetts of a 

 specimen of water snake, Tropidonotus sipedon (L.), with two heads 

 and two tails .^ 



1 American Journ. Science and Arts, X, 1826, 48. 



2 Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., IX, 183. 



