APRIL 83 



College of Surgeons, so that you may despatch your 

 trophy to him without delay, claim the reward of 5 

 which was offered many years ago, and is still offered, 

 by Mr. Tegetmeier, and immortalise yourself by setting 

 a famous controversy at rest. Nothing short of this 

 will do. It may seem an excess of scepsis scientifica to 

 hesitate to accept the testimony of people above sus- 

 picion of intentional dishonesty or exaggeration, who 

 declare they have seen the young vipers entering the 

 mouth of the parent. Nay, more : such persons more 

 than once have dissected snakes killed after they have 

 been seen to swallow their young. But, in the first 

 place, the nerves of anybody suddenly coming upon a 

 snake usually become somewhat disturbed, which is 

 unfavourable to cool observation ; and, in the second 

 place, those who claim to have dissected snakes which 

 have been seen to swallow their young, seldom know 

 how to distinguish between the oesophagus and the 

 oviduct. The presence of live young snakes in the 

 latter would prove nothing, for that would be the 

 natural place to expect to find unborn snakelets ; their 

 presence in the former would be difficult to reconcile 

 with the action of the gastric juice. 



Dr. George Harley has come nearest to an authori- 

 tative pronouncement on the puzzle. In a letter to the 

 Field, March 9, 1895, he described how he dissected 

 on the spot a viper which had been seen to admit its 

 young into its mouth, and had been killed immediately. 

 He found the young in the body of the parent, sure 

 enough, but neither in the stomach nor in the oviduct. 



