614 APPENDIX. 



infant serpent popped its head out of an egg, placed under the 

 maternal care of our captive pythoness, it would have owed its 

 existence to warm air and blankets, and to nothing else. The 

 internal heat alone, greater than that of the male, is the sole incubat- 

 ing operator, for we are not informed that the pythoness possesses a 

 single quality similar to those of animals which hatch their own 

 eggs. 



Even after the incubation is over, and the pythoness still possesses 

 a greater amount of internal heat than that of the male serpent, it 

 would not be conclusive. In our own species, heat varies consider- 

 ably. Had I myself gone to the Arctic regions with Captain Ross, 

 I am quite sure I should have perished for want of heat at the very 

 time that he felt warm and comfortable. Again, had he accom- 

 panied me to the tropics, I fancy that he would have sweated away 

 like a tallow-candle under the noonday sun, whilst I would have been 

 quite at my ease. 



I am not a believer in what is generally called a sun-stroke, or coup 

 de soleil. To prove this, during several years I went out of the house, 

 exactly at twelve o'clock, and stood bareheaded under the heliscentre 

 ray, bareheaded in latitude six north of the equator, for a quarter of 

 an hour. My companions were terrified for the result. I assured 

 them that I apprehended no manner of danger. 



April 13, 1862. 



To Miss Ransome. 



WALTON HALL, April 18, 1865. 



Dear Madam, As your courteous favour did not require an 

 immediate acknowledgment, I put it aside, having pressing business 

 on hand at the time. You may depend upon it the starlings never 

 use the ear in procuring food. That they do so is an old story 

 which has escaped from the dusty volumes of my old grandmother's 

 library, collected there for the use of nurseries on dismal winter 

 evenings. I live in the midst of starlings, having coaxed them to live 

 in congregated numbers during even the summer months. 



Yesterday I counted forty starlings on the lawn within six yards of 

 the sitting-rooms windows. They were all hard at work like London 



