MR. FRANK BUCK LAND ON THE VIPER. 



reason, contends that the question is 

 entirely one of evidence ; and, therefore, 

 should be settled ' as a fact is proved in 

 a court of justice; difficulties, suppo- 

 sitions, or theories not being allowed to 

 form part of the testimony.' " " In sup- 

 port of his own views, Mr. Simson has 

 collected a large body of evidence that 

 undoubtedly appears authentic and con- 

 clusive." 



In all I have read of Mr. Buck- 

 land's writings on this subject, I have 

 seen no evidence in support of his 

 assertion that vipers do not swallow 

 their young. He merely maintains 

 the negative, and produces others 

 like himself who do not know of it, and 

 therefore do not believe in the phe- 

 nomenon, and says that it is impos- 

 sible ; but he has never told us how 

 he knows that vipers do not swallow 

 their young, and why it is impossi- 

 ble. 



The question must occur to any 

 one, how did the idea that vipers 

 (as well as other snakes) swallow 

 their young originate? A subject 

 of that kind never could have be- 

 come a superstition among country 

 people. It has been simply a mat- 

 ter of observation. As such, it is 

 not to be settled by a denial, for in 

 that case one's ignorance would be 

 the standard by which it would be 

 measured, or the scales in which it 

 would be weighed. 



The truth is, Mr. Buckland has 

 committed himself so frequently, so 

 fully, and so publicly on this subject, 

 that it becomes a difficult matter to 

 " go back on " himself. That I can 

 easily understand, as well as that he 

 should say nothing about the mat- 

 ter; but I cannot so easily recon- 

 cile it with the " law of literature " 

 that he should continue asserting a 

 negative, and ignoring every kind of 

 evidence against his theory, as he 

 did lately in his edition of White's 

 Natural History of Selborne, after 

 being in possession of Contributions 

 both before and after publication, 

 saying nothing of the evidence to be 

 drawn from other sources. In re- 



193 



gard to that work he (or Land and 

 Water for him) says : 



" Contributions to Natural History, 

 etc. The fact that the natural history 

 papers in this volume made their ap- 

 pearance in the first instance in these 

 columns is an effectual bar to our offer- 

 ing any opinion on their merits 



Of the first half we have already said 

 we can offer no opinion." 



To this I replied that 



" All of the natural history papers 

 were sent to this journal, but only about 

 half of them, as the work plainly shows, 

 were published in it ; and these did not 

 include the most important on the viper 

 question. They were all intended for 

 Mr. Buckland, in his usual manner, to 

 comment on them, and admit or reject 

 the evidence contained in them." 



Mr. Buckland has always shirked 

 the evidence to prove that vipers do 

 swallow their young, and has be- 

 come " a bar in the way " to its tak- 

 ing its place as a fact in natural his- 

 tory. The question is a very simple' 

 one that is of easy solution if we 

 consider it according to evidence, 

 direct as well as circumstantial ; and 

 it is strange that it should have been 

 allowed to remain unsettled for a 

 century, since White of Selborne 

 brought it into prominent notice. 



Mr. Buckland's last contribution 

 to the discussion presents the sub- 

 ject in an aspect that makes it, I 

 think, of considerable popular in- 

 terest. 



In Land and Water, of the 2d of 

 September, 1876, he gives a wood- 

 cut illustration of " a viper supposed 

 to have swallowed its young." His 

 definition is correct enough, for no 

 one but himself and his " school " 

 would have supposed such a thing. 

 The fact is that the young there de- 

 scribed had never been born, and 

 consequently could neither have run 

 into nor out of the mother, especi- 

 ally as he says that each was " wrap- 

 ped up in a very fine skin or mem- 

 brane, tender as silver paper," (the 



