488 SNAKES. 



One of the early writers who witnessed this offer of refuge 

 was M. de Beauvoir, who saw a disturbed rattlesnake 

 open her jaws to receive five young ones. This amazed 

 spectator retired to quietly watch the result, when, after the 

 lapse of some minutes, the mother snake recovered con- 

 fidence, and she again opened her mouth and 'discharged' 

 her little family. Professor Palisot de Beauvoir was an 

 eminent French naturalist of the beginning of this century, 

 and the author of Observations siir les serpents, published 

 in Daudin's Histoire natiirelle, Paris, 1803. ^^ was 

 accepted as an authority on many other points of natural 

 history; and it is not improbable that he influenced 

 Cuvier's belief in the ophidian maternal refuge. 



It certainly does seem incredible that an occurrence so 

 unprecedented should have been conceived of in the first 

 instance without some ocular demonstration of it. 



Another American traveller, whose testimony Professor 

 Goode considered of worth, was St. John Dunn Hunter,^ 

 who saw young ones rush into the rattlesnake's mouth, and 

 re-appear when ' the parent gave a sort of contractile motion 

 of the throat as a sign that danger was past.' 



Coming down to our own times, Professor Goode 

 mentioned Dr. Edward Palmer, of the Smithsonian Institute 

 of Washington, a well-known traveller and collector, who in 

 Paraguay saw seven young crotali run into their mother's 

 mouth. After the snake was killed, they all ran out. The 

 parent and her brood are now in the National Museum at 

 Washington, D.C. Similar occurrences were witnessed by 

 Professor Sydney J. Smith, of Yale College ; the Rev. 



' Memoirs of Captivity among the Indians. London, I S23. 



