484 SNAKES. 



subject so contemptuously dismissed that investigation is 

 arrested, and few in England would now risk their reputa- 

 tion by committing their names to print in connection with 

 it. It is much to be regretted that this has of late years 

 been the case with several English publications whose 

 columns should be open to a fair examination of evidence 

 on all zoological questions. The influence of such journals, 

 therefore, checks progress ; for until prejudice is got rid of, 

 there can be no advancement in any science. 

 - As is well known, the late Mr. Frank Buckland was to 

 the last sceptical on this question. His specialty was not 

 ophiology ; but the mass of readers do not stop to inquire 

 about this ; and he, being a popular writer as well as a 

 popular character, was accredited by thousands who quoted 

 him, while themselves no naturalists, nor in any position to 

 form an independent opinion. Some contemporary journals 

 unfortunately display the same prejudices, even at the time 

 of writing, causing zoological publications, which should 

 embrace every branch of biology, to be devoted almost 

 exclusively to the specialties of an editor. 



Happily this scepticism is not universal. In the American 

 publications devoted to zoology, information in every branch 

 is welcomed as worthy of consideration ; and though truth 

 has often to be sifted out from a very gigantic pile of 

 rubbish, still it is worth the search ; and we can but feel that 

 the rapid advance of our Transatlantic relatives in every 

 branch of science is due, in a great measure, to the dismissal 

 of prejudice and to the encouragement of every new idea. 



So far as snakes are concerned, their field is wide, it is 

 true. In England our observations are limited to our one 



