WHITE OF SELBORNE ON THE VIPER. 



II 



of animals. . . .The serpent 

 kind eat, I believe, but once a year, 

 or rather but only just at one sea- 

 son of the year." [!] What he wrote 

 really proved that the viper did 

 swallow its young, for he said : 

 " Several intelligent folks assure me 

 that they have seen the viper open 

 her mouth and admit her helpless 

 young down her throat on sudden 

 surprise." This is very positive 

 testimony of people having no 

 apparent motive for imposing on 

 him, nor likely to have been under 

 an illusion themselves. But, in op- 

 position to their evidence, he says : 

 " The London viper-catchers insist 

 on it that no such thing ever hap- 

 pens." That is, they never saw it 

 done, perhaps during the season of 

 viper-trapping, which really was no 

 testimony at all. 



He says that about the 24th of 

 May, 1768, a neighbouring yeoman 

 killed and took out of a viper " a 

 chain of eleven eggs, about the size 

 of those of a blackbird," such as I 

 took out of an American black- 

 snake which swallows her young. 

 According to American snakes this 

 would give about two feet for the 

 mother, which is said to be seldom 

 found much above that length, and 

 four-and-a-half or five inches for 

 the young when hatched. Seven 

 years thereafter, on the 4th of Au- 

 gust, 1775, he himself took out of 

 another fifteen young ones,the short- 

 est of which was fully seven inches 

 in length, and about the size of 

 full-grown earth-worms. Here,then, 

 was a phenomenon for him to solve, 

 viz. the same animal (for argu- 

 ment's sake) containing a string of 

 fifteen eggs about an inch long, 

 lying along her back, after the na- 

 ture of snakes, " none of them ad- 

 vanced so far towards a state of 

 maturity as to contain any rudi- 

 ments of young" (to the country- 

 man's naked eye, for White does 

 not say that he examined them), 

 and seventy-two days thereafter ap- 

 pearing inside of her as snakes up- 



wards of seven inches long, and so 

 mature in their nature that they, 

 "with the true viper spirit about 

 them, showed great alertness as soon 

 as disengaged from the belly of the 

 dam, twisting and wriggling about, 

 setting themselves up, and gaping 

 very wide when touched with a 

 stick, and showing manifest tokens 

 of menace and defiance," to such 

 an extent that he compared their 

 action to " a young cock that will 

 spar at his adversary before his 

 spurs are grown, and a calf or lamb 

 that will push with their heads be- 

 fore their horns are sprouted." Yet, 

 notwithstanding that several intel- 

 ligent people assured .him that they 

 had seen a viper admit her young 

 down her throat, he says : " There 

 was little room to suppose that this 

 brood had ever been in the open 

 air before, and that they were taken 

 in for refuge at the mouth of the 

 dam when she perceived that danger 

 was approaching." And for what 

 reason ? " Because then, probably, 

 we should have found them some- 

 where in the neck and not in the 

 abdomen," That is, we might ex- 

 pect to find fifteen snakes seven 

 inches and a fraction long, or fully 

 nine feet of snakes, in the neck of the 

 mother, that would be three feet long 

 at the very most in the neck, that 

 to the eye or the imagination would 

 hardly admit a passage for one of the 

 young ones at such short notice as a 

 sudden surprise would imply ! 



How did these eggs change to such 

 complete, large, and active snakes 

 before birth ? That is, how did a 

 string of fifteen eggs, lying along the 

 back of the animal, become fifteen 

 snakes, upwards of seven inches 

 long, so active and wicked before 

 they were born, and so filling the 

 abdomen of the mother that she 

 seemed " very heavy and bloated ?" 

 The very nature of an egg is to be 

 laid and hatched by the animal 

 laying it, or by the artifice of man, 

 or by the elements. Yet White says 

 of vipers : " Though they are ovi- 



