SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG. 



necessary that they should turn 

 while confined in their place of ref- 

 uge, but that turn they must when 

 they leave it. 



I gave an instance of their run- 

 ning out of a brown striped snake 

 after the Long Islander killed her. 

 I give another in the adder, noticed 

 by a very trustworthy young friend, 

 who saw several young ones run out 

 of the mother, when lying on a road 

 fatally injured by some one, mashed 

 and helpless. Having an aversion 

 to snakes, he did not examine her 

 otherwise than when passing, but 

 he distinctly saw the young ones 

 coming out of the mouth. We can 

 only conjecture in regard to the 

 physical circumstances of the moth- 

 er swallowing her young. She can 

 doubtless permit and refuse admis- 

 sion, by simply opening and shut- 

 ting her mouth when she ceases to 

 swallow them, doubtless consider- 

 ably, if not long, before she casts 

 them off altogether, as all animals 

 do with their young. Perhaps there 

 is nothing worthy of special notice 

 in the anatomy of the throat or 

 stomach to receive, reject, or retain 

 young of a certain age, if we judge 

 from the fact of the young running 

 out after the mother is killed, unless 

 it should be that nature provides 

 her with the instinct of giving a 

 passage in her last gasp for the es- 

 cape of her progeny. The circum- 

 stances under which the young en- 

 ter the mother should influence 

 them in their movements when in- 

 side ; for, if they enter under the in- 

 fluence of fear, they will naturally 

 be on the qui vive what to do when 

 there, and so turn inside to be ready, 

 if taken in the rear, to run out as 

 instinctively as they ran in. 



There is a phrase in the letter of 

 R. S. F. to which I object. He 

 speaks of its being a " theory " that 

 snakes swallow their young. The 

 right expression is^t&at it is a fact. 

 For example, as re-gfcitds the black 

 and browrt ^striped^f' garter snake 

 in particujj^ wgjiSave eggs taken 



out of them, and eggs found in the 

 ground when ready or nearly ready 

 to hatch, and then the young found 

 in the mother. Should not that sat- 

 isfy any reasonable person that the 

 young were swallowed? To that 

 add that the young have been seen 

 to run out of the mother when 

 killed ; and, to crown all, that they 

 have been seen to run into her, and 

 have been taken out of her by the 

 same people all of which establish 

 it as a fact, and not as a theory, 

 that snakes swallow their young. 

 If R. S. F. does not know how 

 snakes are brought into the world 

 and taken care of in the first stage 

 of their existence, and can refer to 

 no one who does, why should he 

 object to what I have written on the 

 subject? If he admits that the 

 snake lays a " string of eggs," how 

 can he doubt that the chamber that 

 contained them can also hold their 

 contents, to say nothing of the ex- 

 tra room when the eggs were there, 

 and the further expansion of the 

 animal when the young are received 

 inside ? The turning inside would 

 seem to be the easiest part of the 

 phenomenon ; nor can there be any 

 difficulty in believing that the young 

 can be kept alive, after the exceed- 

 ingly mature and lively vipers taken 

 by White of Selborne out of a 

 mother. 



I avail myself of this opportunity 

 to suggest that Mr. Buckland should 

 give us some information regarding 

 his viper and her progeny, embraced 

 under the following heads: When, 

 on what kind of ground, where, 

 how, and by whom caught, and how 

 carried to their present place of 

 keeping? What were the mother 

 and young ones doing, and how far 

 from each other were they when 

 seen and caught ? What resistance 

 did the old one make, and how did 

 she defend her young, and how did 

 they act, on the occasion ? And 

 bow did it happen that the family 

 were bagged at the same time ? Or, 

 how many of them were caught, 



