II. MR. FRANK BUCKLAND AND WHITE OF SEL- 



BORNE* 



ON looking over Mr. Buckland's 

 edition of White's Natural 

 History of Selborne, I find some 

 strange remarks made by him on 

 the question alluded to by White, 

 whether vipers, on the approach of 

 danger, swallow their young. White 

 himself was the very embodiment 

 of dignity and simplicity, candour 

 and courtesy, and was open to con- 

 viction on every question relating 

 to natural history, let the informa- 

 tion come from whatever direction 

 it might. Thus he said : 



"Monographers, come from whence 

 they may, have, I think, fair pretence to 

 challenge some regard and approbation 

 from the lovers of natural history." 

 " Men that undertake only one district 

 are much more likely to advance natural 

 knowledge than those that grasp at 

 more than they can possibly be ac- 

 quainted with." " Candour forbids me 

 to say absolutely that any fact is false 

 because I have never been witness to 

 such a fact." 



Mr. Buckland, when discussing 

 * the question, should have presented 

 in a condensed form the pro and con 

 of it, and given his own conclusion, 

 so that the reader could have 

 formed an estimate of his judgment 

 and of the subject generally. In 

 place of that, he has not, even in 

 the most distant manner, alluded to 

 the affirmative side of the question, 

 nor suggested how the idea could 

 have arisen, or how it happens that 



* This and the following article were of- 

 fered, unsuccessfully, to some English 

 publications. 1 give them in the original 

 form, that they may carry more weight, or 

 be more interesting, than if they had been 

 specially got up for the use they are now 

 put to, although they will present the ap- 

 pearance of a repetition of some of the 

 ideas and facts given. 



so many intelligent people maintain 

 it as a fact personally known to 

 themselves. The course adopted 

 by him was not for want of informa- 

 tion, for (not to speak of many 

 others) he had a number of articles 

 from myself in Land and Water, 

 and others, in his possession for 

 several months, which did not ap- 

 pear in that journal, but which were 

 again laid before him in a work 

 published last year under the title 

 of Contributions to Natural History, 

 and Papers on other Subjects. In 

 that work I said, in regard to snakes 

 swallowing their young, that 



" I consider the testimony so com- 

 plete that nothing could be added to it, 

 although it would be very interesting to 

 have a careful examination of the ana- 

 tomy of the snake to ascertain the phy- 

 sical peculiarities connected with the 

 phenomenon described " (p. 3). 



"As in mathematics we require to 

 know some things to demonstrate 

 others ; so in snakes swallowing their 

 young it is not necessary for a man ot 

 science or common sense, if he will but 

 exercise it, to see it done in order to 

 believe it ; but when ocular testimony is 

 added, it sets the question at rest be- 

 yond all doubt. The next thing to be 

 considered is the anatomy of the snake 

 immediately after the birth of her 

 progeny ; but that could not be so easily 

 ascertained as that she swallows them " 

 (P- 38). 



" I am not aware of the throat of a 

 snake having been examined to see 

 whether it could allow an instant pas- 

 sage for her young. ... If a throat 

 were examined, it should be that of a 

 snake that was alleged or supposed to 

 have swallowed her progeny " (p. 26). 

 " It will be difficult to find this passage 

 unless when it is in use, for it will be- 

 come so contracted at other times as to 

 escape any observation that is not very 

 minutely made " (p. 36). 



That evidence I have not seen 

 (187) 



