SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG. 



I find that I omitted, in my paper 

 of the 1 4th December, to ask under 

 what circumstances Mr. Buckland's 

 viper and her young ones were 

 caught, and what were their respec- 

 tive lengths, and whether the 

 progeny might not have been past 

 the swallowing age, since he has said 

 that they had not favoured him with 

 an exhibition of their dexterity in 

 that respect. 



Much is said of the snake that 

 would indicate that she is possessed 

 of wisdom, but which I will not put 

 on record, for the reason that I am 



not in a position to vouch for it. 

 But in regard to her taking care of 

 her young, she must be very wise 

 when contrasted with the ostrich, 

 " which leaveth her eggs in the 

 earth, and warmeth them in the 

 dust, and forgetteth that the foot 

 may crush them, or that the wild 

 beast may break them. She is 

 hardened against her young ones, as 

 though they were not heis; her la- 

 bour is in vain without fear, because 

 God hath deprived her of wisdom, 

 neither hath he imparted to her un- 

 derstanding." Job xxxix., 14-17.* 



SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG.\ 



A COMMUNICATION I sent 

 Land and Water, on the i ith of 

 January, contained a reply to the 

 question of R. S. F., printed on the 

 1 8th, as to how young snakes enter 

 the stomach of the mother, and 

 how they leave it. They go in head 

 foremost and come out , head fore- 

 most turning, of course, inside. 

 I said that all those taken out of a 



why they are not cast ' inside out.' Before the 

 snake can be~in to move out of its skin it must 

 lo sen itself at the head, and then, as it were, 

 'crawl out of its mouth,' which would involve 

 more or less tugging, pulling, or wrenching of the 

 body to separate it from the skin. When that 

 takes place, the thin, and at first doubtless soft, 

 scales of the eyes will naturally be pulled in, and 

 retain that position, or fall into it, after the slough 

 has been left behind. But if the snake turns its 

 skin wrong side out in any way, or as White 

 supposes as l an eel is skinned,' then the coverings 

 of the eyes would be pulled out or be convex. 

 Without examining the eyes, my own experience 

 and that of others I have conversed with on the 

 subject is that the skins are not found inside out ; 

 and that must be held to be the true position of 

 the matter till the opposite can be demonstrated. 

 It would have been something to the point had 

 Mr. Burr told us how the skin itself looked, for 

 surely any one could easily tell of a newly-shed skin 

 whether it was right or wrong side out ; or had he 

 informed us how a snake could possibly turn its 

 i>kin as it came out of it, and, in addition to that, 

 preserve in such a convulsion the delicate scales of 

 the eyes intact. He does not say to what extent 

 the eyes were concave, nor in what position the 

 skin was found, nor its surroundings with reference 

 to its shedding. I refer him to what I said on the 

 subject on the occasion mentioned, and I would 

 add that his finding the scales of the eyes concave 

 did not warrant his conclusion that * there can be 

 no further doubt about it,' that the animal left its 



snake by myself lay in the same di- 

 rection as the mother. I did not 

 examine them particularly in that 

 respect, but that was their position 

 so far as I noticed and remembered. 

 They certainly were lying length- 

 wise. The Illinois gentleman, so 

 far as he remembers, found them 

 lying some one way and some an- 

 other. He does not consider it 



garment the opposite way it wore it. J. S. (New 

 York, September 27). 



[According to my experience the cast skins of 

 snakes are always turned inside out. F. BUCK- 

 LAND.]" 



Many hold to the opinion expressed 

 by Messrs. Burr and Buckland. It is 

 simply a matter of proof, and it can 

 be considered an open question. How 

 a snake sheds its skin in confinement 

 would not necessarily be a fair cri- 

 terion of how it does it in a state of na- 

 ture; for unless it is furnished with the 

 means of doing it as it would choose, it 

 will be apt to make a mess of the opera- 

 tion. As a question of conjecture, it is 

 much easier to imagine that the reptile 

 wriggles out of its skin rather than parts 

 from it as White describes the pheno- 

 menon. 



* It would appear that Job is not strict- 

 ly accurate in his description of the 

 ostrich. Neither he nor Solomon seems 

 to have noticed that the serpent swallows 

 her young for their protection. 



f Dated February 8th, 1873. 



