304 Notices in Natural History. 



Art. XIX. — Notices in Natural History ; by Judge Samuel 

 Woodruff. 



1. Some snakes viviparous. 



Windsor, June 4, 1835. 



TO PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. 



Dear Sir — From my limited knowledge of the natural history of 

 the various kinds of serpents in our latitude, I had supposed they 

 were all oviparous ; but by a late examination of the Water Snake,* 

 I am inclined to a different opinion, and that all of this tribe are vi- 

 viparous. It is well known, that many species of this reptile among 

 us are oviparous, and in case of attack or threatened danger, receive 

 their hatched young through their mouths into their bodies, and dis- 

 gorge them again at pleasure. This I have witnessed several times, 

 in what is commonly called the streaked or garter snake. But may 

 not this be done, and for the same reason, by other snakes which are 

 viviparous ? 



I have been led to these reflections by the following facts. A 

 few days since, a large water snake, two feet eleven inches in length, 

 was killed near my house, by one of my neighbors, who informed me 

 " it was full of young ones." Upon opening the body, I found in 

 the stomach two toads of a middling size, together with a variety of 

 bugs and insects. Distinct from the stomach and other viscera, but 

 contiguous to them, separated only by a thin membrane, lay a body 

 of matter, of a cylindrical form, seven inches in length, and about 

 one inch in thickness. This organ was of a milk color, and of a 

 mamraillary substance, full of pores, resembling those in a sponge, 

 cellular but tortuous. Upon a slight pressure of this pap, which ap- 

 peared full of lacteal vessels, a milky fluid issued. On the exterior 

 parts of this organ, I observed the heads and about one inch in length 

 of the bodies of the young snakes. They were so small and tender, 

 that in drawing them out of their cells, several of them were broken, 

 but I succeeded in drawing forth eighty two, all alive, but of different 

 .lengths, from three to six inches, and in thickness about the size of 

 a large knitting pin. In killing the parent snake, a pointed stake, 

 taken from a fence, had been thrust through the body, and had bro- 

 ken a part of the organ containing the young, by means of which my 

 neighbor discovered them. The young reptiles in that part were 

 also broken, so that I could not exactly ascertain their number, but 

 judged it to be between ten and twenty. 



♦ Supposed to be the Coluber Sipedon of Linnseus. 



