DO VIPERS SWALLOW THEIR YOUNG? 101 



internal anatomy. Lastly, you must be careful 

 never to mislay the address of Professor Stewart, 

 Curator of the 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 im- 

 mortalise 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 suspicion 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 oeso- 

 phagus 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 



