I 9 4 



APPENDIX. 



remains of the original egg), which 

 shows that they had " never yet been 

 born," but that " in a very short time 

 the young vipers, as drawn, would 

 have been born." 



I can easily believe Mr. Buckland 

 when he says that he has lost the 

 friendship of a gentleman, who 

 would not speak to him, because he 

 asserted that vipers do not swallow 

 their young ; for he (Mr. B.) did 

 so (very probably in the most offen- 

 sive manner, and) in palpable igno- 

 rance of the point in dispute ; an 

 ignorance which apparently no fact 

 or argument will remove from his 

 mind, or get him to acknowledge. 

 He admits that in England, Wales, 

 and Scotland, one-half of the people 

 believe that " a viper does habitu- 

 ally swallow its young, while the 

 other half are totally incredulous." 

 He does not account for either phe- 

 nomenon, although he says that 

 "for something like thirty years I 

 have been endeavouring to settle this 

 point." For this reason the subject 

 should be taken out of his hands, as 

 a person incompetent of treating it. 

 He gives no reason for half of the 

 population being " totally incredu- 

 lous " on this subject, but leaves us 

 to say that they are wilfully so, or 

 because they have never had it fairly 

 explained to them. That the other 

 half are a swallowers" is because, 

 according to Mr. Buckland's long 

 rigmarole, they are under the influ- 

 ence of myths, superstitions, etc. 

 a very high compliment to pass up- 

 on half of the inhabitants of that 

 Island called Great Britain. 



As regards the direct evidence to 

 the swallowing, he says : 



" I can recollect but one man only 

 a game-keeper who could affirm that 

 he had positively seen it," 



whereas White of Selborne wrote : 



"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." * 



And yet Mr. Buckland adds that 

 in his 



" Humble opinion those who state 

 they have seen vipers run down the 

 mother's throat are perfectly honest in 

 their belief, but yet not accurate as to 

 facts. The story is generally to this 

 effect : They have seen the viper bask- 

 ing in the sun with the young ones 

 around her ; on being alarmed the old 

 viper opens her mouth, and the young 

 ones scuttle away." 



One would think that that would 

 settle the question, for he does not 

 say how these people could be mis- 

 taken in what they saw with their 

 own eyes, and not those of others ; 

 but he continues : 



" The viper is then killed, pressed 

 with the foot, or opened with a knife, 

 and the young are found inside the 

 stomach, all alive oh ! " 



Such people, most likely, used the 

 word stomach here, not distinguish- 

 ing between the stomach proper and 

 the chamber described in the en- 

 graving, in which the young take 

 refuge. Mr. Buckland does not say 

 that he ever dissected such a viper, 

 and found the young " wrapped up 

 in a very fine skin or membrane, 

 tender as silver paper." Had he 

 known more of the subject, or 

 been willing to be informed of it by 

 others, he would have referred to 

 White of Selborne, who personally 

 cut open a viper containing, not un- 

 born vipers, coiled up in an egg or 

 covering, about the size of a black- 

 bird's egg, but fifteen exceedingly 

 belligerent reptiles, the shortest of 

 them being fully seven inches long 

 a phenomenon that can be ob- 

 served any summer in England. 

 But he examined another viper 



* White's definition of the phenome- 

 non is apparently more correct than the 

 shorter one, " swallowing," in common 

 use. 



