A very curious and unaccountable habit is attributed to some Reptiles, which, though asserted by many witnesses, at different times and in distant countries, has not yet received the general assent of men of science. White of Selborne, in one of his charming letters to Pennant, has the following note:—"Several intelligent folks assure me that they have seen the Viper open her mouth and admit her helpless young down her throat on sudden surprises, just as the female Opossum does her brood into the pouch under her belly, upon the like emergencies. Yet the London viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr Barrington, that no such thing ever happens."[142]

The evidence of the London viper-catchers goes for no more than it is worth; those whom Mr Barrington applied to,—how many and of what experience I know not,—had not met with such a case. But negative evidence is of little weight against positive. At the same time, others of the same fraternity affirm the fact. There is, as Mr Martin observes, no physiological reason against the possibility of the young maintaining life for a brief period within the stomach of the parent. A swallowed frog has been heard, by Mr Bell, to cry several minutes after it had been swallowed by a snake; and the same excellent authority has seen another frog leap out of the mouth of a snake which had swallowed it, taking advantage of the fact that the latter gaped, as they frequently do, immediately after taking food.

Mr Martin says he has conversed with several who had been assured by gamekeepers and gardeners that the swallowing of the young by vipers had been witnessed by them.[143] And Mr Blyth, a zoologist of established reputation, observes,—"I have been informed of this by so many credible eye-witnesses, that I cannot hesitate in yielding implicit credence to the fact. One man particularly, on whose word I fully rely, tells me that he has himself seen as many as thirteen young vipers thus enter the mouth of the parent, which he afterwards killed and opened for the purpose of counting them."[144]

Mr E. Percival, writing to the Zoologist, under date "64 Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, Oct. 17, 1848," narrates the following facts:—"When in Scotland, last autumn, I saw what at the time satisfied me that vipers really possessed this faculty, though the evidence was scarcely as conclusive as might have been wished. Walking along a sunny road, I saw a viper lying on the parapet. She had apparently just been killed by a blow from a stick. Five or six young ones, about four inches long, were wriggling about their murdered parent, and one was making its way out of her mouth, at the time when I approached. Whether this was the first time the young ones had seen the light, or whether they were only leaving a place of temporary refuge, I leave to more experienced observers than myself to determine."[145]

This communication brought out the following from the late Mr John Wolley:—"Mr Percival's interesting note (Zool., 2305) on this subject reminds me of a very similar anecdote, told me several years ago by a gentleman who is an accurate observer, and who has had long experience in all kinds of sports. He one day shot a viper, and almost immediately afterwards it was surrounded by young ones, in what appeared to him the most mysterious manner. But here the grand link was wanting which Mr Percival has supplied,—the young ones were not seen to come out of their mother's mouth. I may be allowed to mention an anecdote, told me in 1842, by an illiterate shepherd of Hougham, near Dover: he met me catching vipers, and, on my entering into conversation with him, he volunteered—without any allusion of mine—to tell this curious story. One day his father came suddenly upon a viper surrounded by her young, she opened her mouth and they all ran down her throat; he killed her, and leaving her on the ground, propped her mouth open between two pieces of stick; presently the young ones crawled out: on the slightest alarm they retreated back again,—and this they did repeatedly for several days, during which time many people came to see it.[146] The young which White of Selborne cut out of the old female, and which immediately threw themselves into attitudes of defiance, had probably not then seen the daylight for the first time. Mr Bell, in a note in Bennett's edition of White's 'Selborne,' mentions the wide-spread belief in this alleged habit of the viper; but appears to consider the fact not proved. Accounts of similar habits in foreign viviparous snakes, common report, and, above all, Mr Percival's observation, leave no doubt on my mind about the matter."

The most recent case on record that I have met with, is the following, communicated to the Zoologist[147] for last December, by the Rev. Henry Bond, of South Petherton:—

"Walking in an orchard near Tyneham House, in Dorsetshire, I came upon an old adder basking in the sun, with her young around her; she was lying on some grass that had been long cut, and had become smooth and bleached by exposure to the weather. Alarmed by my approach, I distinctly saw the young ones run down their mother's throat. At that time I had never heard of the controversy respecting the fact, otherwise I should have been more anxious to have killed the adder, to prove the case. As it was, she escaped while I was more interested in the circumstance I witnessed than in her destruction."

Exactly the same thing is told of the North American Rattlesnake. Hunter says, that when alarmed, the young ones, which are eight or ten in number, retreat into the mouth of the parent, and reappear on its giving a contractile muscular token that the danger is past.[148]

M. Palisot de Beauvois asserts that he saw a large rattlesnake which he had disturbed in his walks immediately coil itself up and open its jaws, when in an instant five small ones that were lying by it rushed into its open mouth. He concealed himself, and watched the snake, and in a quarter of an hour saw her discharge them. He then approached a second time, when the young ones rushed into the parent's mouth more quickly than before, and the animal immediately moved off, and escaped. The phenomenon is said to have been observed in regard to some of the venomous snakes of India, but I cannot now refer to details.

Confirmation of a reported fact is sometimes derived from collateral evidence, and such is not wanting in the present case. The phenomenon is not confined to serpents; it has been observed in their near relatives, the lizards. Mr Edward Newman, while guarding the subject with a philosophical caveat, furnishes his readers with the following highly interesting and germane statement:—"1st, My late lamented friend, William Christy, jun., found a fine specimen of the common scaly lizard with two young ones. Taking an interest in everything relating to Natural History, he put them into a small pocket vasculum to bring home; but when he next opened the vasculum the young ones had disappeared, and the belly of the parent was greatly distended; he concluded she had devoured her own offspring; at night the vasculum was laid on a table, and the lizard was therefore at rest: in the morning the young ones had reappeared, and the mother was as lean as at first. 2d, Mr Henry Doubleday, of Epping, supplies the following information:—A person whose name is English, a good observer, and one, as it were, brought up in Natural History, under Mr Doubleday's tuition, once happened to set his foot on a lizard in the forest, and while the lizard was thus held down by his foot, he distinctly saw three young ones run out of her mouth. Struck by such a phenomenon, he killed and opened the old one, and found two other young ones in her stomach, which had been injured when he trod upon her. In both these instances the narrators are of that class who do know what to observe, and how to observe it; and the facts, whatever explanation they may admit, are not to be dismissed as the result of imagination or mistaken observation."[149]

It is remarkable that all the serpents to which the phenomenon is attributed are ovo-viviparous. Our common lizard, to which the facts just narrated doubtless belong (Zootoca vivipara), has the same property, which, however, appears to be by no means common among the Saurian races. This coincidence, while it would afford a handle to the deniers of the stated facts, in the assumption that the emergence of the living young from the abdomen, or their presence within it, has given rise to the notion—may have an essential significance and connexion with the phenomenon itself, on the hypothesis of its truth. That endowment, whatever it be, which enables the young to live and breathe in the abdominal cavity of the mother before birth, may render it easier for them than for others not so endowed to survive a temporary incarceration within the stomach after birth. Mr Newman does not know how to believe that a young and tender animal can remain in the strongly digestive stomach of a viper and receive no injury; but he has forgotten to take into the account the well-ascertained power that living tissues have the power of resisting the action of chemical re-agents that would instantly take effect upon them when dead. The walls of the stomach itself are not corroded by the gastric-juice which is rapidly dissolving the piece of meat within it. If the young animals can do without air for a while in their snug retreat, I do not think they would need fear the digestive operation. Air, I should suppose, must be excluded from the stomach, unless the parent have the power of swallowing air voluntarily, for the emergency; but perhaps a cold-blooded animal like a reptile, with a sluggish circulation and respiration, might do with very much less fresh air than a mammal under similar conditions.

The proposed rationale of those who reject these statements,—that female vipers in the last stage of pregnancy have been opened, and have given freedom to living and active young, and that careless and unscientific observers have leaped to the conclusion that their young must have entered by the mouth,—will not stand before the testimony distinctly given by witnesses, who have actually seen the young retreat into the mouth, and have then found them within the body. No doubt the subject needs further investigation by careful and unprejudiced naturalists; but the positive evidence already adduced on the testimony of so many deponents, warrants our accepting the phenomenon as a normal habit of certain species of Saurians and Ophidians, though it may be somewhat rarely resorted to, and that whatever physical difficulties may seem to stand in the way of its À priori probability—difficulties which perhaps depend on our ignorance, and which will disappear before the light of advancing knowledge.

The entomologists have fallen most ungallantly foul of Madame Merian, a lady who resided in Surinam nearly two hundred years ago, and devoted her attention to the native entomology, painting insects in a very admirable manner. She is set down as a thorough heretic, not at all to be believed, a manufacturer of unsound natural history, an inventor of false facts in science.

Among other things, she speaks of a large hemipterous fly, which has in consequence of her reports been named Fulgora lanternaria. This insect has the head produced into a large inflated proboscis more than an inch in length, which is said to carry an intense luminosity within its transparent walls, as a candle is carried within a lantern. The fair observer says that the first discovery which she made of this property caused her no small alarm. The Indians had brought her several of these insects, which by daylight exhibited no extraordinary appearance, and she enclosed them in a box until she should have an opportunity of drawing them, placing it upon a table in her lodging-room. In the middle of the night the confined insects made such a noise as to awake her, and she opened the box, the inside of which, to her great astonishment, appeared all in a blaze; and in her fright letting it fall, she was not less surprised to see each of the insects apparently on fire. She soon, however, divined the cause of this unexpected phenomenon, and re-enclosed her brilliant guests in their place of confinement. She adds that the light of one of these FulgorÆ is sufficiently bright to read a newspaper by: and though the tale of her having drawn one of these insects by its own light is without foundation, she doubtless might have done so if she had chosen.

This circumstantial and apparently truthful statement has brought no small odium on the fair narrator. Other naturalists who have had opportunities of seeing the insect in its native regions strongly deny its luminosity. The inhabitants of Cayenne, according to the French Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, aver that it does not shine at all; and this is confirmed by M. Richard, a naturalist, who reared the species. The learned and accurate Count Hoffmansegg states that his insect collector Herr Sieber, a practised entomologist of thirty years' experience, who during a sojourn of several years in Brazil took many specimens of the Fulgora lanternaria, never saw a single one which was in the slightest degree luminous. There is a kindred species in China, F. candelaria, very common in those glazed boxes of insects which the Chinese sell to mariners; this also has been supposed to emit light, but Dr Cantor assures us that he has never observed the least luminosity in this species.

Thus it would seem that the obloquy which has fallen upon the ingenious lady is not altogether undeserved, and that for the sake of a telling story, she has been indeed "telling a story." But we may imagine her offended ghost looking round and saying, "All these gentlemen merely say they have not seen the light; now I say I have: is there no one who will verify my statement?"

M. Lacordaire,—an authority on South American insects second to none, says that he himself indeed never saw a luminous Fulgora all the time he was collecting in Brazil and Cayenne, and that most of the inhabitants of the latter country, when questioned on the subject, denied the fact, yet that others of the natives as distinctly affirmed that it is luminous. He asks whether it is not possible that the light may be confined to one sex, and thus the conflicting testimony be reconciled; and gives it as his opinion that the point is rather one which requires more careful observation, than one which we can consider absolutely decided.[150]

Again, the Marquis Spinola, in an elaborate paper on this tribe, published in the Annals of the Entomological Society of France,[151] strenuously contends that the remarkable development of the frontal portion of the head in the whole race is luminous. And finally, a friend of Mr Wesmael assured him that he had himself seen the American Fulgora luminous while alive.[152]

It may help to sustain our faith in the veracity of Madame Merian, to know that there is some reason for attributing occasional luminosity to well-known English insects, of which hundreds, and even thousands, have been taken without manifesting a trace of the phenomenon. Mr Spence, in his interesting Letter on Luminous Insects,[153] adduces the following evidence:—Insects "may be luminous which have not hitherto been suspected of being so. This seems proved by the following fact: A learned friend has informed me, that when he was curate of Ickleton, Cambridgeshire, in 1780, a farmer of that place, of the name of Simpringham, brought to him a mole-cricket (Gryllotalpa vulgaris, Latr.), and told him that one of his people seeing a Jack-o'-lantern, pursued it, and knocked it down, when it proved to be this insect, and the identical specimen shewn to him.

"This singular fact, while it renders it probable that some insects are luminous which no one has imagined to be so, seems to afford a clue to the, at least, partial explanation of the very obscure subject of ignes fatui, and to shew that there is considerable ground for the opinion long ago maintained by Ray and Willughby, that the majority of these supposed meteors are no other than luminous insects. That the large varying lambent flames mentioned by Beccaria to be very common in some parts of Italy, and the luminous globes seen by Dr Shaw cannot be thus explained, is obvious. These were probably electrical phenomena; certainly not explosions of phosphuretted hydrogen, as has been suggested by some, which must necessarily have been momentary. But that the ignis fatuus mentioned by Derham as having been seen by himself, and which he describes as flitting about a thistle, was, though he seems of a different opinion, no other than some luminous insect, I have little doubt. Mr Sheppard informs me that, travelling one night between Stamford and Grantham on the top of the stage, he observed for more than ten minutes a very large ignis fatuus in the low marshy grounds, which had every appearance of being an insect. The wind was very high: consequently, had it been a vapour it must have been carried forward in a direct line; but this was not the case. It had the same motion as a Tipula, flying upwards and downwards, backwards and forwards, sometimes appearing as settled, and sometimes as hovering in the air. Whatever be the true nature of these meteors, of which so much is said and so little known, it is singular how few modern instances of their having been observed are on record. Dr Darwin declares, that though in the course of a long life he had been out in the night, and in the places where they are said to appear, times without number, he had never seen anything of the kind; and from the silence of other philosophers of our own times, it should seem that their experience is similar."

A paper by Mr R Chambers on the subject adduces the additional testimony of facts observed by good naturalists, as Dickson and Curtis the eminent botanists, and Stothard the painter and entomologist, by his own father Mr A. Chambers, and by Joseph Simpson, a fisherman living near Boston, all of which strongly corroborate the probability that some, at least, of the ignes fatui are produced by luminous insects.[154] Mr Main narrates the case of a farmer who stated that he had pursued a Will-o'-the-wisp, and coming up with it had knocked it down, when it proved to be an insect "exactly like a Maggy-long-legs"—that is, the common Crane-fly (Tipula oleracea), the very insect with which Mr Sheppard had compared the motions of the luminous flame observed by him.[155] Mr Spence argues that while gaseous emanations may be a cause of stationary ignes fatui, the same cause will not explain those which flit along from place to place; and that these are probably luminous insects, however rarely they may have come under the notice of entomologists. "A very strong argument for the possibility of some flying insects being occasionally luminous (in England) is afforded by the facts ... of luminous caterpillars having been within these few years observed for the first time since entomology has been attended to, and that by observers every way competent. If caterpillars so very common as those of Mamestra oleracea may sometimes, though so rarely, be luminous, and if, as Dr Boisduval suggests, and is very probable, this appearance was caused by disease, it is obvious that flying insects may be also occasionally (though seldom) luminous from disease—a supposition which will at once explain the rarity of the occurrence, and the circumstance that insects of such different genera, and even orders, are said to have exhibited this phenomenon."[156]

These highly curious facts should make observers cautious in strongly denying statements made by others of phenomena, when they themselves have not been so fortunate as to witness them, even though they may think their opportunities to have been as favourable as those of the soi-disant observer.[157]

But we have not yet dismissed Madame Merian. If acquitted of falsehood here, she stands arraigned on a second charge of similar character.

In most tropical countries there are found hideous hairy spiders of monstrous size and most repulsive appearance; short-legged, sombre-hued, ferocious marauders of the night, that by day lurk in obscure retreats under stones, or in burrows in the earth.

Guiana produces a formidable species of this sort (Mygale avicularia), which measures three inches in length, and whose feet—though the genus is, as I have said, comparatively short-limbed—cover an area some eight or ten inches in diameter. Madame Merian has exquisitely figured the tragical end of a tiny humming-bird, surprised by one of these monsters on her eggs; the petite bird overthrown under the fangs of the sprawling spider, one of whose feet is in the nest. It was on the authority of this lady that LinnÆus gave the name of avicularia to the species. Later naturalists have scouted the whole story. Mr MacLeay, who resided in Cuba, says that there are indeed there huge spiders, allied to our garden spider, which make a geometric net, strong enough to embarrass small birds; but that these do not attempt to catch such prey, and never molest birds at all. On the other hand, he avers that the Cuban Mygale, an allied species to that of Guiana, makes no web, and has no power of injuring birds. He put this to the test of experiment; for having maimed a humming-bird, he thrust it into the Mygale's hole, which, instead of seizing the victim, retreated as in fear out of his den. This Mr MacLeay supposes to be conclusive; but a moment's reflection will shew how equivocal is the evidence. The spider may not have been hungry; or he may have been taken aback by the sudden intrusion; or he might not choose to take prey that he had not stolen upon and slaughtered suo more; or he may have muttered in the Arachnidan language,—

Because a wolf will cower down in the corner of his lair (even a tiger has been known to do so)—when a man suddenly enters his presence, and will manifest the most abject fear, would it be philosophical to ridicule the tales told of wolves pursuing and devouring men by night?

M. Langsdorff asked the people of Brazil if the Caranquexeira, or the great Mygale of that country, fed upon humming-birds, when they answered him, with bursts of laughter, that it only gratified its maw with large flies, ants, bees, wasps, beetles, &c.; an answer which the traveller verified by his own personal experience.[158] If M. Langsdorff means, which of course he does, that he learned by personal observation that the spider ordinarily feeds on insects, that fact is indubitable, and never has been doubted; but if he means that he had experience that it eats only such prey, which is the question at issue, it is plain that this experience proves no more than that he never witnessed such a fact.

Percival, in his account of Ceylon, observes:—"There is an immense spider here, with legs not less than four inches long, and having the body covered with thick black hair." This was doubtless the Mygale of the island. "The webs which it makes are strong enough to entangle and hold even small birds, which form its usual prey." Alluding to this statement, Sir Emerson Tennent says:—

"As to the stories told of the Mygale catching and killing birds, I am satisfied, both from inquiry and observation, that, at least in Ceylon, they are destitute of truth, and that (unless in the possible case of acute suffering from hunger) this creature shuns all description of food except soft insects and annelides." And yet he immediately adds:—"A lady at Marandan, near Colombo, told me that she had, on one occasion, seen a little house-lizard (gecko) seized and devoured by one of these ugly spiders."[159] Does he not, then, credit his informant? Or are lizards included in the category of "soft insects and annelides?"

Against this incredulity, resting on no better than negative evidence, one might adduce collateral proof from analogy. There are spiders which feed on vertebrate animals, and there are spiders whose webs catch birds. The large and beautiful Nephila claripes of tropical America weaves strong threads of yellow silk in the paths of the woods, converging to a web quite strong enough to arrest a bird of weak flight. It must have been a species allied to this, but certainly, I think, not the same, of which Dr Walsh speaks in his "Travels in Brazil." "Among the insects is an enormous spider, which I did not observe elsewhere. In passing through an opening between some trees, I felt my head entangled in some obstructions, and on withdrawing it, my straw hat remained behind. When I looked up I saw it suspended in the air, entangled in the meshes of an immense cobweb, which was drawn like a veil of thick gauze across the opening, and was expanded from branch to branch of the opposite trees as large as a sheet ten or twelve feet in diameter. The whole of this space was covered with spiders of the same species but different sizes; some of them, when their legs were expanded, forming a circle of six or seven inches in circumference.[160] They were particularly distinguished by bright spots. The cords composing the web were of a glossy yellow, like the fibres of silkworms, and equally strong."

There is a creature found in the tropical parts of both hemispheres, called Solpuga, which though not exactly a spider, is yet so closely allied to that family as to be in some measure responsible for its misdoings. It is about as large as the Mygale, and, with sufficient general resemblance to it to warrant its being popularly considered a spider, it has much the same habits and appetites. Captain Hutton, in a most interesting memoir, describes the details of an Indian species under the name of Galeodes vorax. Among many other details, he says—"This species is extremely voracious, feeding at night upon beetles, flies, and even large lizards; and sometimes gorging itself to such a degree as to render it almost unable to move. A lizard, three inches long, exclusive of tail, was entirely devoured; the spider sprung at it, and made a seizure immediately behind the shoulder, never quitting its hold until the whole was consumed. The poor lizard struggled violently at first, rolling over and over in its agony, but the spider kept firm hold, and gradually sawed away with its double jaws into the very entrails of the victim. The only parts uneaten were the jaws and part of the skin, although the lizard was at least five inches long from nose to extremity of tail. After this meal, the spider remained gorged and motionless for about a fortnight, being much swollen and distended.

"A young sparrow, about half grown, was placed under a bell-glass with a Galeodes; the moment the luckless bird moved, the spider seized him by the thigh, which he speedily sawed off, in spite of the sparrow's fluttering; and then as the poor bird continued to struggle in pain, the savage seized him by the throat, and soon put an end to his sufferings by cutting off the head. It did not, however, devour the bird, nor any part of it, but seemed satisfied with having killed it.

"On another occasion, I gave it a large garden-lizard, which was instantly seized by the middle of the body; the lizard, finding that it could not shake off its adversary, turned its head, and bit the Galeodes on the leg, which obliged it immediately to quit its hold and retreat.

"On another occasion my friend, Dr Baddeley, confined one of these spiders in a wall-shade with two young musk rats (Sorex Indicus), both of which were killed by it."[161]

In an expedition to the Kurruckpoor Hills, south of Monghyr, Captain Sherwill found upon the summit of Maruk, a table-topped hill of 1100 feet elevation, several of the gigantic webs of the Epeira spider, some of which measured (including the guy-ropes) from ten to twelve feet in diameter, the reticulated portion being about five feet, in the centre of which the spider, of a formidable size and very active, sits waiting for prey. "The webs," he says, "from their great strength, offered a sensible resistance when forcing our way through them. In the web of one of the spiders we found a bird entangled, and the young spiders, about eight in number, feeding upon the carcase. The bird was, with the exception of its legs and beak, entirely enveloped in the web, and was much decomposed; the entwined web had completely pinioned the wings of the bird, so as to render its escape impossible. The bird was about the size of a field-lark, and was near the centre of the web; the old spider was about a foot above the bird: we secured, measured, and bottled him. Its dimensions were six inches across the legs, and it was armed with a formidable pair of mandibles."[162]

It is clear, then, that there is nothing absurd or contrary to probability in the statement that spiders attack, overcome, and devour birds. But Madame Merian is here again favoured with direct witnesses to sustain her good faith. M. Moreau de JonnÈs expressly mentions, on his own authority, that the South American Mygale climbs the branches of trees to devour the young of humming-birds. But the most satisfactory statement is made by Mr H. W. Bates, who has recently returned from the interior of Brazil after many years spent in studying the entomology of that vast region. No one will deny his competency as a witness. "Now I will relate to you," he says, "what I saw in the month of June 1849, in the neighbourhood of Cameta. I was attracted by a curious movement of the large gray-brown Mygale on the trunk of a vast tree: it was close beneath a deep crevice or chink in the tree, across which this species weaves a dense web, open for its exit and entrance at one end. In the present instance the lower part of the web was broken, and two pretty small finches were entangled in its folds; the finch was about the size of the common siskin of Europe, and I judged the two to be male and female; one of them was quite dead, but secured in the broken web; the other was under the body of the spider, not quite dead, and was covered in parts with the filthy liquor or saliva exuded by the monster. I was on my return from a day's excursion by land at the time, with my boxes full of valuable and delicate insects, and six miles from my house, and therefore could not have brought the specimens home, even if I had wished, which I did not, as the spider was a very common species, easily to be procured nearer home. The species I cannot name; I sent several fine specimens, stuffed, to London, in 1851; it is wholly of a gray-brown colour, and clothed with coarse pile. Doubtless you will immediately know the exact species to which I refer.

"If the Mygales did not prey upon vertebrated animals, I do not see how they could find sufficient subsistence.

"On the extensive sandy campos of Santarem, so bare in vegetation, there are hundreds of the broad slanting burrows of the large stout species, (that fine one, dark brown with paler lines down the legs, of which I sent specimens in 1851.) The campos, I know, from close research, to be almost destitute of insects, but at the same time to swarm with small lizards, and some curious ground finches of the Emberiza group (one of which has a song wonderfully resembling our yellow bunting of England), besides which, vast numbers of the CaprimulgidÆ and ground doves lay their eggs on the bare ground.

"I believe this species of Mygale feeds on these animals and their eggs at night. Just at the close of day, when I have been hurrying home, not liking to be benighted on the pathless waste, I have surprised these monsters, who retreated within the mouths of their burrows on my approach."[163]