igo 



APPENDIX. 



given us his authority. Like others, 

 before and since, he evidently con- 

 cluded that, as some vipers are 

 killed pregnant with eggs and others 

 with young, the latter must have 

 been, and therefore were, hatched 

 inside. His real knowledge was 

 illustrated when he said that " the 

 reptiles, few as they are, I am not 

 acquainted with so well as I could 

 wish with regard to their natural 

 history. There is a degree of du- 

 biousness and obscurity attending 

 the propagation of this class of ani- 

 mals." Then he says : 



"Several intelligent folks assure me 

 that they have seen the viper open her 

 mouth and admit her helpless young 

 down her throat on sudden surprises ; " 



whereas Mr. Buckland writes thus: 



"It is still believed by many that a 

 female viper will swallow her young 

 when they are in peril. In nearly all 

 the cases [he does not explain the ex- 

 ceptions] that have come under my ex- 

 amination, the event always happened 

 a long time ago. The witness gener- 

 ally begins his statement thus : ' When 

 I was a little boy,' ' Many years ago,' 

 ' My grandmother told me,' etc., etc. 

 If vipers swallowed their young ' many 

 years ago,' why should they not do so 

 in our time ?" 



And he adds with a pooh, pooh air, 

 as if he had noticed a crow flying 

 past a window : 



"A correspondence on this subject 

 takes place in Land and Water almost 

 every year," 



while all the evidence furnished, in- 

 cluding my own and that of the 

 American Science Convention, as 

 already explained, and the evidence 

 to be drawn from other sources, has 

 been passed by as if it had no value, 

 or even existence. Presuming on 

 something or other, whatever it may 

 be, he thus carries things with a 

 very high hand, riding rough-shod 

 over every kind of evidence quite 

 unlike a man of superior character, 

 intellect, and acquirements. 



In his defence he says : 



" I have made many anatomical pre- 

 parations to show that the young vipers 

 found inside the mother have never 

 been born." 



It would certainly be interesting to 

 have these examinations minutely 

 described, but divested of technical 

 phrases, so as to make them per- 

 fectly intelligible to the ordinary 

 reader, and in which nothing is as- 

 sumed, but everything proved, or 

 logically and elaborately argued, if 

 it cannot admit of proof.* He 

 further says : 



" I still continue my public offer of a 

 reward of i for a specimen of a viper 

 which has been seen to swallow its 

 young, the young being actitally in the 

 cesophagus, or in the stomach proper, 

 when it is opened by me in the presence 

 of witnesses." 



The words underlined by him will 

 prevent him being ever called upon 

 to pay the pound, for young snakes 

 do not enter that part of the mother, 

 but take refuge in the chamber that 

 contained the eggs, and that lies by 

 the side or in front of the stomach, 

 and extends below it, if my memory 

 serves me correctly. There might 

 be danger in taking the pound in 

 the event of Mr. Buckland buy- 

 ing a "pig in a bag," and lay- 

 ing his " subject " aside to suit 

 his convenience in having it dis- 

 sected in the presence of his wit- 

 nesses, who must be called together ; 

 for he could have the countryman 

 arrested for obtaining money on 

 false pretences, on the plea that the 

 young had not been swallowed ; for, 

 had they been swallowed, they 

 would have been in the stomach, 

 and not in the chamber! And he 



* It was evidently in reply to this re- 

 quest that Mr. Buckland gave, in Land 

 and Water, a wood cut illustration of "a 

 viper supposed to have swallowed its 

 young," as alluded to in the following 

 article. 



