[August, 
478 Do Snakes^ Swallow their Young ? 
Miss Hopley, at the end of Chapter XXVII., says: — 
“ In concluding this speculative chapter I can only humbly 
beg to ‘ second the motion ’ put to the learned assembly at 
Portland, Maine, in 1873, to the effect that the subject will 
receive the attention of ophiologists in all the snake countries 
of the world.” — (P. .506.) 
In no sense did she second Mr. Goode, as we have seen. 
For had she done so, and drawn on my information, which 
she had before her, she would have shown that the question 
was no longer “ speculative,” but mathematically certain, that 
“ snakes swallow their young.” In her book she alludes to 
“ a brood of young vipers lately born at the Zoological 
Gardens,” and says that “ the young viper comes into the 
world in the shape of an egg, and its first business is to 
push through the filmy membrane which envelopes it in its 
imprisoned form ” (p. 433). I said that “ vipers pass their 
young with a covering on them, — the original egg attenuated 
to the last degree, — which breaks as it leaves the mother, or 
immediately after it touches the ground ” (p. 195), and asked 
how could we possibly find vipers nearly double the size of 
the new-born ones inside of a viper, unless they had entered 
it by the mouth, — as we find oviparous snakes “ with young 
inside of them that were hatched in the soil ?” I have never 
seen the subject presented in this form by any one I have 
read on it. Hence the unreasonableness of people saying 
“ Bring me a viper with its mouth tied up, and all her young 
ones in her throat (!), and then I will believe you,” as Miss 
Hopley says: the sceptics (p, 483) include the editor of 
the “ Field,” who, so lately as October, 1881, “ closed his 
columns against investigation.” 
It would be interesting to hear how anyone knew as a 
fadf that the eggs of vipers are hatched inside ; about which 
I said, in “ Land and Water,” on January nth, 1873 : — 
“ It would be a curiosity in nature to find an animal that 
hatched an unlaid egg inside of itself : so great a curiosity 
is at once to be rejected, unless it could be supported by 
evidence.” — (P. 12.) 
New York, June 11, 1883. 
