Snakes: Curiosities and Wonders of Serpent Life

by Catherine Cooper Hopley

In the foregoing portions of this volume I have been able frequently to bring personal observations to verify what books have taught me. With the present subject this cannot be the case. I have neither seen a viper in the act of giving refuge to her young ones by receiving them into her mouth, nor have I ever had the circumstance described to me by any one who has witnessed the proceeding. This is not surprising, seeing that my studies have been prosecuted almost entirely in London. For any information obtained at the Gardens I am indebted solely to the keepers, whose opportunities of observation when aided by intelligence and experience merit the confidence of the inquirer.

So astonishing a phase of ophidian habits—let us say only reputed habits—was, however, to me one to excite very special interest, as well as to induce inquiry and a possible solution of the mystery; and towards this solution the facts related in chap. xxiv. and xxv. appear to me to come foremost in our aid. All snakes that are ovoviviparous, was the decision arrived at by the American ophiologists; or viviparous, for we have seen that the two words have but little value as a distinction. I would venture so far as to render it thus:—

In snakes which are either viviparous, or in which from some cause or other extrusion has been so postponed that the young are conscious of existence before birth. Conscious also when born that they had been safer in that pre-natal condition than now when assailed on all sides by dangers hitherto unknown. This idea—and probably an untenable, unphysiological, and foolish idea, which science might laugh to scorn in an instant—still the idea did flash into my mind one day in the summer of 1873, when Holland, announcing a brood of young ring snakes which had just been hatched at the Gardens, and describing their baby terrors, said, ‘It is funny to see how they all try to wriggle back into their shells again.’

‘Then those little Colubers had been conscious of security before they were hatched,’ I reflected, ‘and conscious when they did emerge into activity that the shell had been a safe refuge to them.’ (This was prior to the American Convention, of which I knew nothing until long afterwards.)

Consciousness of locality must, I think, have a good deal to do with the maternal refuge; and that snakes possess this consciousness in a strong degree has been already shown in their habit of returning to the same spot to hibernate year after year: and not only for winter quarters; but a strong love of locality and a memory of home are observed wherever snakes abound. ‘They remain in a hole or a crevice of the wall for years,’ Fayrer affirms. In his Prairie Folk, Parker Gilmore tells of a family of ‘Puff adders’ (by which probably Heterodon platyrhinos is meant) that had taken up their abode under the boards of a porch for several years and could not be routed out. Nicholson, also, in his Indian Snakes, informs us that when he was stationed at Kamptee in 1868, a cobra and a pair of Bungarus acutus lived in his bungalow for a long while. He could not find where the cobra lived, but the Bungari made themselves at home in a hole of the wall under his dressing-table. He never saw either of these interlopers, but identified them by the skins which they ‘periodically cast;’ taking advantage of his absence, no doubt, or of his nocturnal somnolence, to perform their toilet under his looking-glass!

The often recounted tale of an Indian who had a tame rattlesnake that went away every spring, and returned regularly each autumn to a certain tub which it had appropriated for its home, is only an example of affection for locality; but by those who were not cognisant of this habit, the story has been produced with a strong flavour of the marvellous, and the Indian who knew by the season when to expect his creeping friend, was not slow to attribute the regular return to especial regard for his own person. That crotalus coming alone so regularly, was probably a lone widow or widower; because we also know that the pair of snakes are usually seen together, and that they follow each other with strong conjugal affection. This is not irrelevant to the present subject; because the affection of ophidians, whether conjugal or maternal, is what we are now considering. The quality was well known in classic ages, though it has been denied them in modern times. Many writers on snakes, while affirming that they ‘exhibit no phase of affection,’ describe their constantly going in pairs; or the fact that they become ‘vicious if their retreat is cut off.’ ‘In their peregrinations male and female are always in company,’ says Catlin; ‘and when only one is seen, the other is sure to be within hearing.’ When a female has been killed and left on the spot, the male always comes. The Indians profit by this knowledge of conjugal devotion to lie in wait and kill the mate. They place the dead one near the hole of their retreat, and watch the egress of the survivor, which is sure to come and inspect its dead companion.

Sir Emerson Tennant observed a decided affection between the sexes of the cobra. In his History of Ceylon he gives several proofs, as for instance a cobra being killed in a bath, and the next day the mate being found there. In Baird’s Report of one of the Pacific exploring expeditions, a good deal is said about the Bull snake (Pituophis), which follows its mate by the scent. Once a fine individual having been captured and placed in a barrel near the tent, a large one of the same species was shortly afterwards found close by, and in a direct line from where its mate was caught.

So much for conjugal affection. As regards maternal devotion, we certainly had a proof in the pythons remaining week after week on their eggs. True, they took no notice of the little ones when hatched, because they were well able to take care of themselves. The mothers had fulfilled their duties beforehand. Snakes which are vicious at no other time, menace those who approach their nests or cut off their retreat. This is a fact universally recognised, alike in Africa, India, Australia, and America: wherever a traveller, a hunter, or a resident incidentally mentions snake habits, he confirms this home affection.

‘Snakes, if aggressive at no other time, are always spiteful when they have young,’ says Fayrer. And an anecdote is related of a man who stumbled on a nest of young Hamadryads, and was pursued a long distance by the angry mother. Terror added wings to his flight, as she came fast upon him. In despair he plunged into a river and swam across, but on reaching the opposite bank, up reared the furious Hamadryad, its dilated eyes glistening with rage, ready to bury its fangs in his trembling body. Escape now seemed hopeless, and as a last resource he tore off his turban and threw that at the enemy. With characteristic stupidity the snake plunged its fangs into this, biting it furiously. After wreaking its vengeance upon the turban, it glided back to its nest and its young ones and so the man escaped.

Apropos of Indian snakes, Nicholson, though a practical ophiologist, never heard of snakes swallowing their young in India. This may be because so large a proportion of them are egg-laying, and because the only two vipers, Daboia and Echis, are nocturnal, very shy, and not so frequent. Most of the other members of the Indian viperine snakes, the Crotalidæ, are tree snakes, which, like the sea snakes, are more likely to be dispersed and separated from their progeny, and to take refuge in flight. They are, besides, less frequent, shy, nocturnal, or crepuscular; and belong more to Malay and Hindoo China, than to the localities in which observations are more feasible. Fayrer does not even state positively that they are viviparous. At the same time Nicholson will ‘say nothing certain about the young going down the throat, but sees no reason why not.’ ‘They can do without air for half an hour or so, and a snake’s throat is sufficiently capacious to allow a frog to croak de profundis clamavi when he is two feet from daylight.’