140 DO SNAKES SWALLOW THEIR YOUNG? 




















7OURB oe which endeavoured unsuccessfully to follow in the wake ot 
the first.” * Bi 
To ‘hi s we may add another instance corroborative, and yet more co 
e V 
‘* Now, ‘seeing is pee and I well remember having seen in 
yhood—some thirty years ago—an instance of the fact, the truth 
which is doubted Sisuies resting merely on the testimony of hgs 
entific country people. Now, I have no pretensions to science, WW 
I vouch for the truth ahaa referred to—of having, in my boyhoo 
— when out on a birds’ -nesting Eee tion in a southern county, wi 
some three or four companions—come suddenly upon a viper sunig 
her young brood on an open grassy sp oe in a broad hedge-row: hedge 
rows were common in those days. Immediately she saw us, she began to 
hiss, and away went the young, previously some feet from her, ‘helter 
skelter’ towards their mother; rushed into her mouth — expanded toa 
immense width for so small. a creature— and down her throat, one 
over the other, while you could say ‘Jack Robinson.’ The space where 
she was recreating was some twenty feet square, so that before she coal 
beat to cover, we, boylike, being armed with sticks, had beaten her t0 
death. This done, one of the party with his knife opened the body, 
out came again the little ones, all of which we ki led. Ido not remembe 
the exact number, but my impression is that it was not more than six ot 
eight.” t Another or anes recently communicated to Science-@ 
the following occurren 
t Some years since In was shooting in a wood, and came suddenly % 
viper lying on a sunny bank. As soon as the viper caught sight of 16 
began to hiss, and I distinctly saw several young ones, about Masi 
four inches long, run up to the parent and vanish down its throat; 
from the way in which the parent kept its mouth open, and the young 
glided into it, I should say they were accustomed to that sort of thing: 
We must not forget that some time since the following % 
were narrated in the Zoölogist, by the editor himself, and ieee 
own offspring. At night the vasculum was laid on a table, i 
was a ei at rest; in the ere the young ones had re-AP) 
the mother was as lean as at first 

i w 
* The Zoölogist, p. 8856. t Science- Gossip, p. 108. t Ibid P 
