GILPIN ON THE SERPENTS OF NOVA SCOTIA. 87 



first form as fish or tadpoles, living upon vegetable matter, have 

 no need of maternal instinct. There are a few records of our 

 Salamanders being seen hovering over their eggs, but the numer- 

 ous stories from persons of every class in life, though doubted by 

 many eminent naturalists, of our snakes being seen with their young 

 during the summer months, and of their young taking refuge within 

 the mother's stomach during danger, render it beyond doubt. 



Of instances of the green snake (C. vernalis), Archdeacon 

 Gilpin informed me he passed on the high road of Nova Scotia, a 

 green snake, dead, and of large size. It had been crushed by a 

 wheel and much torn, and lying dead also, within and without the 

 belly were many young ones. Dr. Baird, (Smithsonian Institute) 

 says in his work, "Serpents of New Jersey" he took from a 

 a graved" female of the same species, eighty-three young snakes, 

 six inches long, on the Allegany River. Now in both these in- 

 stances, we know that the young had been hatched from eggs, and 

 must have entered the mother's stomach after birth. In Dr. Baird's 

 case, though he calls the snake "graved," the great size of the 

 young " six inches," shows they must have been a month old ; the 

 size when hatched being one and a half, and the aggregate length 

 of forty-one feet, being too great a bulk for any ovary to hold. 

 Of similar instances in the garter snake — Mr. Stayner, a merchant 

 of Halifax, as well as an observer of nature, and a fine sportsman, 

 informs me he saw during the autumn of 1875, near Halifax, a 

 large garter snake lying dead, much crushed, and many small ones 

 lying dead about. He pushed with his cane others from within 

 her belly — from which there was a chain of eggs also hanging. 

 In a letter Mr. William Gossip of Halifax, gave me from his 

 grandson,- — the boy states, he with his companions found a large 

 garter snake near the railroad at Wilmot, Nova Scotia, surrounded 

 by many young ones, when she immediately opened her mouth and 

 they all took shelter within it. They pursued her from under a 

 pile of lumber, beneath which she took refuge — killed her, and 

 forcing thirty live young ones out of her mouth — killed and counted 

 them all. These few instances I have given from hundreds I have 

 heard, from all classes of society. That then our snakes are pro- 



