132 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



Messrs. D. Le Souef, G. Coghill, F. G. A. Barnard, and C. 

 Coles also spoke to the paper. 



NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 



Mr. F. G. A. Barnard drew attention to the numerous letters 

 appearing in the daily press regarding the question, " Do snakes 

 swallow their young ? " and asked the opinion of Mr. Le Souef on 

 the matter. Mr. Le Souef stated that this was no doubt one of 

 many popular errors. He did not think for a moment that the 

 young take refuge inside the mother. He stated that a Tiger 

 Snake has up to fifty-two young at a time, and ridiculed the idea 

 of such a number finding room inside the mother. The young 

 of Australian venomous snakes, he stated, are born alive, and are 

 quite active and ready to bite, though from his personal ex- 

 perience the effects of their bite are not serious. In fact, he said, 

 it was not possible for a snake to poison a person if bitten 

 through the trousers or stocking, as owing to the canal which 

 conveys the poison through the fangs opening some little 

 distance from the point of the tooth, the poison is lodged in the 

 clothing and not in the punctures. He thought that many of the 

 cases reported of recovery from snake-bite might be accounted 

 for in this way. 



Mr. G. A. Keartland mentioned a case, which came under his 

 own observation, of a snake confined in the Sydney Zoological 

 Gardens, which had forty-two young ones, and which swallowed 

 several of them, but none of them appeared again. 



Mr. A. J. Campbell drew attention to a beautiful nest of the 

 Scrub-Tit, Acanthornis 7nagna, from Tasmania, which was 

 collected and exhibited, together with the mounted bird, by 

 his son, Mr. A. G. Campbell ; also to A. ewingi, a species which 

 had been reinstated in the Tasmanian fauna after being lost sight 

 of for some 40 years. 



EXHIBITS. 



By Mr. A. G. Campbell. — The following four species of 

 Tasmanian Tits : — Acanthiza chri/sorrhoa, A. diemeiiensis, A. 

 ewingi (reinstated after being lost sight of for 40 years), and A. 

 magnirostris, from King Island ; also nest and mounted bird of 

 the Scrub-Tit, Acanthornis magna, from Mt. Wellington, Tas- 

 mania. 



By Mr. P. C Cole. — Aboriginal reed necklace, worn when in 

 mourning, from North Queensland. 



By Mr. A. Coles. — Mounted specimen of the Northern Diver, 

 Colymbus glacialis, from Russia. 



By Mr, C. French, jun. — Three Victorian scale insects, new to 

 science, and collected by Mr. C. French, jun., viz. : — PuJvinaria 

 salicornice, Green, on salicornia, from Little River ; Sphcerococcus 



