1883.J Correspondence . 367 
with the foot or a stick would prevent the escape of the young ; 
a cord may then be tied tightly and speedily round the throat, 
over the handkerchief, effectually capturing the entire family, 
which have been seen to enter the mouth. Then plunge the 
whole— handkerchief, cord, and all — into a jar or bottle of alco- 
hol, and dispatch it to Prof. Baird, of the Smithsonian Institute, 
or to some other American herpetologist. Better still, pack the 
bottle in a box of sawdust, and address it to the Zoological 
Society of London, 11, Hanover Square. They would, no doubt, 
be willing to pay a good price for so valuable a specimen, which, 
from a well-accredited witness, would “ set the matter for ever at 
rest ” in the Old World as in the New. 
Unfortunately the tendency to fill up spare corners of news- 
papers with “ snake stories ” in America, where humorous 
journalists vie with each other in outdoing the marvellous, throws 
discredit on the few incidents that may be true among them ; 
for — to use the words of Prof. Owen, when regretting this mis- 
use of journalism — “ it is far harder to kill an untruth than to 
establish a truth.” 
With snakes in captivity we are unlikely ever to witness this 
display of maternal refuge, since the cause of provocation can- 
not exist. It would be impossible to so entirely seclude the 
snakes that they should be unfamiliar with human beings. They 
must be fed and otherwise cared for, and so become, to a certain 
extent, “ tame ” in their abnormal condition. 
Let me conclude with a hope that the present summer will 
not pass without the capture of at least one of the many pattern- 
mother snakes annually recorded as living refuges. — I am, &c., 
Catherine C. Hopley, 
PALAEOZOIC ROCKS IN AMERICA. 
To the Editor of the Journal of Science . 
Sir, — Referring to your remarks on Mr. Kinahan’s memoir on 
Palaeozoic Rocks in Galway and elsewhere in Ireland, supposed 
to be Laurentian (Vol. v., No. cxi.), I observe you refer to Dr. T. 
Sterry Hunt, who “ twenty years ago admitted that certain Done- 
gal rocks could not be distinguished from altered palaeozoic 
strata in America.” 
Dr. Hunt has changed his opinion, and no longer — since 1870 
I think — regards these strata as altered palaeozoic, but as pro- 
bably Huronian, 
