REPTILES. 203 



lizard can exist for nearly twenty-four hours in a snake's 

 gullet. This last point has an important bearing upon 

 an oft-disputed matter does the Viper swallow its own 

 young ? It has been repeatedly stated that if a Viper is 

 surprised with her brood of young ones around her, she 

 will open her mouth wide and the little ones promptly 

 run into it, and take refuge in her stomach till all fear 

 of danger be past ! The statement is so strange that it 

 has been received with incredulity, and it is only after 

 reading the independent testimony of many witnesses of 

 undeniable veracity, whose accounts all agree as to 

 the main fact, that we are inclined to think that it may 

 possibly be true.* The strongest objection that could 

 be urged against it is that, if the young were retained in 

 the stomach or gullet of the parent for any length of 

 time, they would be killed, or at any rate injured, by 

 the action of the digestive fluids. This objection is 

 nullified, however, by the instance given above, where 

 a lizard remained alive for twenty-four hours in a Viper's 

 stomach ; and in all the cases observed, the young 

 Vipers swallowed by the parent have been found to be 

 quite uninjured. Perhaps the digestive fluids of Reptiles 

 act less rapidly upon the skins of reptiles than upon 

 other animal matter but this is only a conjecture. 

 Mr. R. de G. Benson states that some members of his 

 family once observed, at Pulverbatch, a Snake on a hedge- 

 bank, with a brood of young ones who took refuge, when 

 alarmed, in her mouth. The author thinks this must 

 have been a Viper, as the Snake has never been known 

 to act in this way, and, being oviparous, does not take 



* Mr. J. Steele Elliott writes The Field has offered 5 to anyone who will send them 

 a Viper with young in its stomach; no one has ever obtained the reward. 



