MR. FRANK BUCKLAND AND WHITE OF SELBOXNE. 



I8 9 



or supposition of Mr. Buckland on 

 a point like this amounts to nothing. 

 It would also be interesting if he 

 would tell us what animals are not 

 covered, or partly covered, with 

 something, however slight, when 

 they come into the world. If he 

 finds, as a matter of fact, that vipers 

 are born singly, in the open air, with 

 a covering on them, how can he pos- 

 sibly resist the conclusion that those 

 found inside of a mother, as de- 

 scribed, had entered her by the 

 mouth? That there may be no 

 question on this point, we find in 

 America that oviparous snakes are 

 found with young inside of them 

 which were hatched in the soil ; the 

 young having been seen to run in 

 and run out by people whose evi- 

 dence it would be out of the ques- 

 tion to dispute. 



Mr. Buckland's ideas on this sub- 

 ject are very hazy and vague. Thus a 

 writer in Land and Water, on the 

 27th of September, 1873, said that a 

 gentleman killed a viper, and " ob- 

 serving it to be of unusual thickness 

 about the middle, he put his foot 

 upon the place, thinking that the 

 reptile had recently swallowed a 

 mouse. The pressure brought out 

 ten young vipers from the mouth of 

 the old one. Some of them were 

 about five inches long, and some 

 shorter ; but all were alive and act- 

 ive, as if they had previously seen 

 the light of day, and had again 

 sought shelter in the parent." Mr. 

 Buckland admitted all .this, but 

 maintained that the young had not 

 been born, but were squeezed out of 

 the mouth! a rather strange phe- 

 nomenon for the young inside of an 

 egg or covering to be forced out of 

 the mouth, in the direction of which, 

 according to Mr. Buckland's theory, 

 there is no passage. One would 

 naturally think that the pressure of 

 the foot would have converted the 

 contents of the mother into a jelly, 

 or forced them out towards the tail, 

 rather than produced a " stream of 

 viperlings " from her mouth, " alive 



and active," as described.* On the 

 i4th of August, 1875, he was in- 

 formed of an officer of the 77th Reg- 

 iment killing a viper with " young 

 ones alive inside." To that Mr. 

 Buckland replied : 



" To say that a viper has swallowed 

 its young because they are found inside 

 it, is as logical as to state that because 

 a lot of kittens are found alive in a moth- 

 er cat, therefore the cat had swallowed 

 them." 



From this one would conclude, 

 that snakes do not swallow their 

 young because cats do not do it ! 

 " There is nothing extraordinary in 

 finding live baby vipers inside the 

 mother; but they were not, and 

 never had been, inside the stomach 

 proper." As if any one had ever as- 

 serted that, or imagined that Nature 

 was such a botch as to permit the 

 young to get mixed up with the en- 

 trails or vital organs ! " They were by 

 the side of the stomach, each wrapt 

 up in a thin delicate membrane " 

 (the remains of the original egg), as 

 indeed they were before they were 

 born ; but these were divested of 

 the membrane, and, as it were," run- 

 ning about " inside, as can be found 

 in a viper any summer in England. 



Another strange thing to be no- 

 ticed in Mr. Buckland's notes on 

 White> besides not admitting a 

 single word in opposition to his 

 theory as distinguished from the 

 fact of snakes swallowing their 

 young, is, that he does not admit of 

 White's own evidence, which was 

 complete, excepting that he did not 

 tell us (because he says he did not 

 know) how vipers are born. White 

 wrote thus of vipers : 



" Though they are oviparous, yet they 

 are viviparous also, hatching their 

 young within their bellies, and then 

 bringing them forth." 



In supporting this assertion, it 

 would have been interesting had he 



* For the particulars of this phenom- 

 enon see note at page 39. 



