28 



SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG. 



torpid ; and the time that elapsed 

 could not have exceeded two min- 

 utes. As to the inconvenience to 

 a snake from having swallowed 

 her young, it could hardly be 

 greater than in the case of 

 White's viper (or any similar one 

 to be found any summer in 

 England), which, although probably 

 little more than two feet long, yet 

 contained in the abdomen fifteen 

 young ones, the shortest of which 

 was fully seven inches in length ; it 

 making little difference whether the 

 young had been swallowed, or had 

 not yet been born, according to 

 White's theory. And that disposes 

 of D.'s assertion that "no compe- 

 tent naturalist has ever found young 

 vipers in the stomach of the mo- 

 ther;" which assertion is as un- 

 founded as his other one, that the 

 "egg-laying American snakes are 

 never found with young inside of 

 them." He further remarks: 

 " Physiologists say there is no 

 physical obstacle to the supposed 

 habit [of swallowing the young] 

 and the cumulative testimony of 

 many witnesses would compel us to 

 receive it as an established fact." 

 Then why reject it for the odd rea- 

 son that " experience warns us, on 

 the other hand, of the extreme 

 liability of untrained observers to 

 be misled by preconceived opin- 

 ions," when such observers have, in 

 almost every instance, no precon- 

 ceived opinions or theories on the 

 subject most of them not even 

 the capacity to form them but 

 narrate merely what they have seen, 

 and in return find their observa- 

 tions not merely doubted, but dis- 

 credited and disputed by people full 

 of " preconceived opinions," and 

 empirics in natural history. 



What reason could any one ad- 

 vance against snakes swallowing 

 their young, beyond the one I have 

 mentioned, viz. : " No sow on the 

 approach of danger receives her 

 infantile grunters inside of her; 

 therefore no snake does it with her 



young." That the snake receives 

 her young inside of her is a ques- 

 tion that should be settled by evi- 

 dence, as a fact is proved in a court 

 of justice; difficulties, suppositions 

 or theories not being allowed to 

 form part of the testimony. As il- 

 lustrating how particular I am in 

 such matters, I give the following : 

 The gentleman that took a toad 

 out of an adder came suddenly on 

 one of a different species, lying in 

 the middle of a road, and killed 

 her, mashing her head and body so 

 as to burst the latter. He turned, 

 at a distance of about fifteen feet, 

 to look at her, when he observed a 

 number of young ones leaving her, 

 some of which he killed. As the 

 mother was thicker and much wider 

 than ordinary, and bloated, while 

 her abdomen, after she was killed, 

 heaved as with something moving 

 inside, there was no moral doubt of 

 the young ones having been inside 

 of her ; but as they were not seen 

 to enter and leave her, it should, as 

 a case of swallowing, be decided as 

 "not proven." The mother mea- 

 sured about two feet, and the young 

 ones about five inches. 



D. also maintains the old theory, 

 as if he knew it to be a fact, that 

 the eggs of vipers are hatched in- 

 side, and says that any one who 

 does not know it as a fact is in a 

 " mist." Chambers' Encyclopedia 

 speaks of the " eggs probably burst- 

 ing in the act of parturition." 

 Either must be proved to be a fact 

 before being received as such ; and 

 if neither can be proved it must be 

 held that the eggs are laid and then 

 hatched. In my paper printed on 

 the nth January, I gave an argu- 

 ment against their being hatched 

 inside, and I should like to see one in 

 favour of the theory. And if it hap- 

 pens that the " eggs of vipers burst 

 in the act of parturition," it would 

 also be interesting to see an argu- 

 ment in -favour of well-grown and 

 active vipers being found inside of 

 the mother, unless they entered her 



