I 9 8 



APPENDIX. 



tion, in their respective branches, 

 not regarding him as a reliable 

 authority on the many questions on 

 which he is so ready to give so 

 absolute a decision, evidently will 

 not enter the sphere of which he is 

 the luminary. Having thus sub- 

 stantially a clear course before him, 

 he acts as if he considered himself 

 society's darling, that can do pretty 

 much what he pleases in regard to 

 natural history, and defy any moral 

 magistrate British and especially 

 American to commit him or bind 

 him over. He rather went over the 

 mark, however, in marring the 

 sacred text of White ; after which 

 there is hardly anything for him to 

 be guilty of but contempt of majesty 

 and sacrilege. 



The phrase " presumptuous in- 

 efficiency " applied by the Examiner 

 to his edition of White is a bitter 

 expression, and all the more bitter 

 because the editor had apparently 

 to decline using it in a formal im- 

 peachment of the writer by name. 

 That purpose would have been 

 served had I succeeded in getting 

 part of the preceding article at page 

 191, from " In White's " to the end 

 of it, with my name attached, in- 

 serted in a London journal which I 

 always considered one of independ- 

 ence, and the special medium for 

 pointing out the unpardonable 

 liberties taken with White. 



" Presumptuous inefficiency " is 

 absolute truth when applied to Mr. 

 Buckland's treatment of the viper 

 question, where he has been caught, 

 as it were, in a trap from which 

 there is no living extrication; so 

 that no one need look to him, even 

 after his thirty years' labour, to have 

 that very interesting point in natural 

 history decided; and about which 

 there need be no controversy, inter- 

 national or otherwise. Besides vipers 

 swallowing their young, I repeat 

 what I have said in the work: 



" I lay it down as an axiom that we 

 must hold that all snakes [when living 



in a state of nature] swallow their young, 

 till the opposite can be proved of any 

 particular species of them " (p. 29). 



On paying a visit this year (1878), 

 about the yth of April, to Wee- 

 hawken, near Hoboken, in New 

 Jersey, opposite New York, where 

 snakes have been killed by the rail- 

 road trains passing over them while 

 lying along or on the rails, for the 

 heat of the sun concentrated in the 

 iron (p. 29), I noticed, here and 

 there, dead garter snakes of all sizes, 

 lying sometimes three together, too 

 fresh-looking to have been killed last 

 year ; and I made inquiries of a man 

 in the immediate vicinity, who has 

 mowed the marsh there for many 

 years. He said that they made their 

 first appearance in the early part of 

 March so early and mild was the 

 season and in great force about the 

 ist of April, when the children and 

 more grown-up people turned out 

 and killed many of them, some in 

 the open air and others on turning 

 over the stones to get at them. This 

 man, intelligent and doubtless in 

 this matter reliable, after having 

 had many opportunities for noticing 

 snakes, assured me, on being asked 

 generally, "what he knew about 

 snakes," that he had seen a black 

 and a garter snake (both oviparous) 

 swallow their young. He was mi- 

 nute in his description in the latter 

 instance. He said that he saw the 

 snake at a very short distance, then 

 distinctly heard a peculiar noise, and 

 saw her open widely her mouth, and 

 the young snakes, coming quickly 

 from every direction, and in a con- 

 fused-looking scramble, enter it; 

 making a scene very interesting to 

 witness. He then put his foot on 

 her, immediately below the head, 

 just as the last one went down her 

 throat, and seized her by the tail, 

 and ripped her open with his knife, 

 without touching the stomach pro- 

 per, and let out a number of young 

 ones, which were several weeks old, 

 so far as he could judge. He said 

 that the peculiar noise served the 



