455 SNAKES. 



The peculiar condition of this snake not bein^^ suspected, 

 not even her sex, the appearance of two fully-developed 

 though dead young ones on April 2d was an important event 

 in the Ophidarium, and one to be forthwith chronicled in 

 the Zoological Society's Proceedings. The secretary, at the 

 ensuing meeting, exhibited the two young Anacondas, and 

 afforded some interesting details concerning the mother. 

 During the next few days four more young ones were born, 

 but all dead ; and during several weeks, others in a high 

 state of decomposition were produced. ' She might have 

 had a hundred ! ' said the keeper, who felt fully persuaded 

 that she had voluntarily 'kept them back.' Four were well 

 developed ; one was partly coiled in the ruptured shell, 

 which was of a tough, coriaceous texture, white, and as thick 

 as orange peel. 



Occurrences of this nature send us to our book-shelves. 

 The python and some of the boas had laid eggs, and 

 Anaconda might have been expected to do the same, as we 

 read in the papers that wrote * leaders ' on the event. But 

 suddenly we all discover (' we ' second and third rate 

 naturalists, who regard the biological professors at a 

 respectful distance, and aspire only to a printed half column 

 in a similarly aspiring journal), — we all discover that Cuvier 

 had long ago pointed out that rEunect viurin is viviparous 

 (like the regular water snakes), and that Schlegel had 

 subsequently confirmed the fact from personal observation. 

 Thus we learn as we go. 



Those born dead in London offered no exception, therefore, 

 to the rule, but were rather to be regarded as one of those 

 cases in which the mother, under circumstances unpropitious 



