DO SNAKES REFUGE THEIR YOUNGS 485 



viper, whereas America is the land of snakes, no less than 

 are India and Australia ; and while our native viper is grow- 

 ing rarer every year, the opportunities for observation in 

 the Western World are wherever a new settlement is 

 planted. 



Thus, when, in February 1873, Professor G. Browne Goode, 

 of Middletown University, Connecticut, invited, through the 

 columns of the American Agriculturist, all the authentic 

 information that could be procured on the question, 'Do 

 snakes swallow their young ?' he received, as he tells us, 

 no less than 120 testimonies from as many persons in 

 various parts of the United States that single season. 



The area in which information was collected included 

 twenty-four States and counties, ' almost all the evidence 

 being valuable.' 



Professor Goode was intending to bring the subject before 

 the Aviericafi Association for the Advancement of Science^ to 

 convene at Portland, Maine, the following August ; and he 

 spent the summer in collecting information. 



At that session of 1873, in the Biological Section of the 

 Association, * A Science Convention on Snakes' was held, 

 and a paper was read by Professor G. Browne Goode, the 

 subject offered for discussion being — 'Do snakes offer a 

 temporary refuge for tJieir young in tJieir throats, whence they 

 emerge when tJie danger is past f On this occasion the chair 

 was occupied by Mr. F. W. Putnam, one of the editors of 

 the American Naturalist, and secretary to the Association. 

 Professor Joseph Lovering was the new President on 

 Professor Lawrence Smith's retiring ; and among those who 

 took part in the discussion were several eminent naturalists 



