
136 DO SNAKES SWALLOW THEIR YOUNG? 

















snakes are known to feed on smaller ones ;* and that it would | 
be almost too much to expect that an animal, which to our 3 
higher natures seems so cold in its disposition, would stop to 4 
i aider the fact that it was her own children she had in her 
throat before forcing them into her empty stomach. But — 
here again are we met with facts that should set this doubt 
at rest; for certainly we must allow that her Snakeship is as 
highly endowed with motherly feeling as several species of — 
fishes which live in the waters of Soulhi America, and which — 
are known to carry their eggs in their mouths until they are 
hatched, and the young isa attained considerable size; and 
yet, though the mouths of these fishes are so full of eggs ~ 
young that they cannot take food without either unloading — 
their mouths or swallowing their eggs, yet they are not 
known to swallow eggs which they have taken in charge 
With this well knows. case of forbearance on the part of 
fishes, are we not justified in believing that snakes would j 
have an equally motherly regard for their offspring? a 
It has been given as a reason against the probability of : 
snakes taking their young into debs: throats, that the gastric d 
juice would Aity the life of the young ones in a & 
time ; but this is not the case, as we know from the instance 
of the frog that life is not immediately destroyed. Te 
gastric juice, too, would not affect any animal. until it w 
received within the stomach, and probably not even gr 
until life was destroyed by suffocation. at 
The belief that the young of several species of snakes 
enter the mouth of the parent for protection, has pre 
for a long time, and, in many countries. A simi lar belief 
very preria among sailors and sea-faring men, T¢ 
many species of hath which are thought to take thei 
young into the mouth to protect them from danger.t 

* On opening a large Black-snake (Coluber seers enh a full-sized a 
(Coluber vernalis), and a full-sized Brown-snake ( Tropidonotus occipitomaculati®i 
found in its stomach and adjoining part of the ld son with those porti 
stomach in a slightly decomposed condition ae a 
me sailors believe that the young sharks, which are often seen to 
