THE LIVING WORLD. 
177 
root, enabling the creature to shoot out that organ with great rapidity and at 
considerable length. It was formerly supposed, by persons ill informed, that 
serpents inflicted a poisonous sting with the tongue, a fancy perpetuated by 
many references made in standard works to the serpent’s sting. It is hardly 
necessary to say now that the tongue is quite as harmless as the track the 
creature makes in crawling. 
HOW SNAKES BRING FORTH AND PROTECT THEIR YOUNG. 
Many snakes bring forth their young alive, the eggs having been hatched' 
within the body, while others, notably the Boa, deposit their eggs in a nest and 
incubate them with the small amount of animal heat given off by the creature’s- 
body. Father Labat gives us the following remarkable experience with regard 
to the manner in which the viper produces its young: 
“I took a serpent of the viper kind, that was nine feet long, and ordered 
it to be opened in my presence. I then saw the manner in which the eggs 
of these animals lie in the womb. In this creature there were six eggs, each 
of the size of a goose egg, but longer, more pointed, and covered with a 
membranous skin, by which also they were united to each other. Each of 
these eggs contained from thirteen to fifteen young ones, about six inches 
long, and as thick as a goose-quill. Though the female from which they 
were taken was spotted, the young seemed to have a variety of colors very 
different from the parent; and this led me to suppose that the color was no 
characteristic mark among serpents. These little mischievous animals were no 
sooner let loose from the shell then they crept about, and put themselves into 
a threatening posture, coiling themselves up, and biting the stick with which 
I was destroying them. In this manner I killed seventy-four young ones; 
those that were contained in one of the eggs escaped at the place where the 
female was killed, by the bursting of the egg, and their getting among the 
bushes.” 
It has long been a question for debate among naturalists themselves 
whether or not any of the serpent species give protection to their young by 
providing a retreat for them through the mouth and into the stomach. Many 
stoutly deny, while others, backed by experience, affirm the truth, among the 
latter disputants being a majority of those whose opinions are considered au¬ 
thority. In further proof of the assertion I may add my own experience, which 
differs somewhat from that of’ others that I have read, in that while the asser¬ 
tion is that such protection is only given by venomous species, the story I 
have to tell is of a harmless striped ground snake, so beneficial to the farmer 
in ridding his fields of ground mice and noxious insects: One day I 
was walking near the river bank with a companion when our eyes fell upon a 
ground snake just as it was making its escape under a large board that had 
been deposited on the bank by a rise of the river. We naturally sought its 
life and shifting the board easily killed it before the reptile could reach 
another retreat, particularly as its movements seemed unnaturally slow. After 
mashing the head and giving the body a few strokes I picked the carcase up 
by the tail, when to our astonishment a dozen or more of its young, all 
marked exactly like the parent, ran out at the bruised mouth, but as I dropped 
the dead snake instantly about one half of them, after emerging, ran back 
again into their former receptacle, where I killed them. Thus the evidence 
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