WHITE OF SELBORNE ON THE VIPER. 



ing ; for the eggs of the American 

 snake appear to be laid immediately 

 after being formed, as they are 

 ' sometimes found in the ground con- 

 taining only the slightest tinge of 

 foetus, but otherwise exactly as I 

 took them out of the animal, when 

 I discovered no appearance of that 

 in the eggs, which I examined (but 

 not carefully) with the naked eye. 



Mr. Frank Buckland has agreed 

 to test the phenomenon of swallow- 

 ing in a very unphilosophical way, 

 by procuring a viper with young 

 already born or hatched he prob- 

 ably does not know which and 

 asks for proof of the swallowing 

 while the creature is in the hands 

 of the Philistines, when she has no 

 call to do it, to cany the young 

 anywhere, or protect them from the 

 weather, or preserve them from ap- 

 proaching danger that is avoidable. 

 In short, her captivity prevents that 

 which Mr. Buckland insinuates it 

 should lead to a very ingenious 

 and frank way to choke off pro- 

 swallowers. Cats generally will not 

 even look at rats when interfered 

 with in their own way and place of 

 tackling them. There is nothing 

 to prevent Mr. Buckland making 

 the experiments I have suggested. 

 He has already " taken proceed- 

 ings " in the matter, but in a very 

 unreasonable manner ; and it is to 

 be hoped he will do something fur- 

 ther, and gratify the curiosity of 

 naturalists everywhere, whatever 

 the result might be. 



I need not suggest the experiment 

 of trying to hatch the eggs of the 

 viper in a temperature like that of 

 the place from which they were tak- 

 en, in the same way that the Amer- 

 ican brought forth his snakes on 

 the mantelpiece ; for if she lays eggs, 

 that would settle the question as to 

 her being a " swallower." I may, 

 however, say something more about 

 the American experiment. The 

 gentleman who conducted it I had 

 hunted up, after a lapse of thirteen 

 years (sometimes a rather difficult 



matter in America), and examined 

 fully. There was no fire burn- 

 ing, as it was in July. He killed 

 the mother, which was hovering 

 about, apparently in the expectation 

 of her services being required, as 

 the eggs proved very near the hatch- 

 ing point. He took one of them to 

 his place of business in New York, 

 to satisfy incredulous people, and 

 fortunately the birth took place on 

 a table, in the presence of several 

 people. The young snake, which 

 measured six inches in length, made 

 its appearance by the head, gradu- 

 ally uncoiling itself out of its pris- 

 on, which was an inch long, but 

 not nearly so broad, and did not 

 break in pieces like a brittle fowl's 

 egg on being hatched, but opened in 

 two, as the outside covering of some 

 kinds of nuts come apart. It proved 

 of the ordinary brown striped spe- 

 cies (a harmless kind), the same as 

 the old one killed, which was about 

 three feet long an exact descrip- 

 tion of the one from which I took 

 the young ones. Immediately after 

 it disengaged itself, it began to 

 move about in a pretty lively way 

 like snakes, but did not prove in 

 any way belligerent when touched. 

 It was then put into spirits and pre- 

 served. The substance covering it 

 resembled ordinary paper in thick- 

 ness, and dry, but considerably at- 

 tenuated from its original condi- 

 tion.* The eggs found by this 

 gentleman were in a pretty bunch 

 or cluster, all sticking together, but 

 how formed he did not know till I 

 told him that before being laid they 

 were in a string, lying along the 

 back of the snake, loosely connect- 



* If fifteen or twenty eggs, lying along 

 the back of a snake, were hatched inside 

 in the way described, we would have, on 

 a small scale, something worse than an 

 earthquake. Or, imagine the eggs, hatch- 

 ed at birth like the bursting of a shell at 

 the mouth of a gun, or some time after 

 leaving it, and returning to the gun, 

 without being taken into it, and we 

 would have the doctrine of anti-swal- 

 lowers well illustrated. 



