DO SNAKES INCUBATE! 437 



menacing-, and yet 'had no manner of fangs that we could 

 find, even with the help of our glasses.' 



Mr. Frank Buckland tells of a man who cut open a 

 -string of snake's eggs, and the young, thus prematurely 

 introduced into the world, * showed fight.' 



Of historical ophidians which have figured in many pages, 

 first comes chronologically the Paris python, that in 1841 

 laid fifteen eggs and incubated them. She has already 

 been alluded to in chap, iv., but claims further mention 

 presently. 



A python in the Amsterdam collection next hatched 

 twenty-two eggs. 



In 1862 a python at the London Gardens laid above 

 a hundred eggs, — ' more than a bushel,' according to the 

 keeper, — and settled herself to hatch them. Much interest 

 attaches itself to this lady's history ; but first to complete 

 our list chronologically, the following harmless species in the 

 London collection have within the last ten years produced 

 live young, being examples of that 'diversity of generation' 

 of which Schlegel speaks. 



August 1872, the 'seven-banded snake' {Trop. leberis) had 

 five young and some eggs at the same time. 



June 1873, a Coluber natrix had seven young ones. (I 

 cannot affirm positively that these were born alive ; I think 

 not, from an especial entry in my notebook concerning them ; 

 but the records of the Zoological Society in which I have 

 sought for confirmation do not announce them as ' hatched.') 



August 1873, a yellow Jamaica boa {Chilobothrus inornatiis) 

 gave birth to fourteen young ones, ten of which survived. 

 They crawled up to the top of their cage as soon as they 



