We owe to Zoological Societies and menageries the confirmation of the _couvaison_ of at least one species of serpents. Subsequently we are told, ‘The python only incubates,’ this snake being generally mentioned as the one exception; and only within a very few years has maternal affection been accredited to any others. Mr. P. H. Gosse was informed by the negroes in Jamaica of the habits of the yellow boa. Sir Joseph Fayrer was informed by the jugglers that ‘over and over again they had dug cobras out of their holes _sitting on their eggs_.’ Dr. E. Nicholson was informed ‘on trustworthy authority that the Hamadryad has been found coiled upon a nest of evidently artificial construction.’ He thinks snakes always watch over their eggs, and frequent the locality where they have deposited them. The keeper at the Gardens confirms this by his own observations. ‘They do care for their eggs in their own way,’ he assured me, and display unusual irritability and wildness at such times.[130] In menageries, however, their habits are always more or less artificial; they cannot seek spots for themselves, or exercise maternal instinct beyond doing the best they can under the circumstances. Anything in the way of extra indulgences, such as soft rubbish, moss, or sand, is duly appreciated when eggs are about to be deposited, and we find maternal ophidians resort at once to this. In a footnote, vol. xvi. p. 65 of the _Annales des sciences naturelles_, we read:—‘_Il parait que l’incubation des serpents est un fait si connu dans l’Inde, qu’il entre même dans leur contes populaires. M. Roulin m’a fait remarquer dans le second voyage de Sindbad le marin_ (_nouvelle traduction Anglaise des ‘Mille et une nuits’ par W. Lane_, tom. iii. p. 20) _le passage suivant: Alors je regardai dans la caverne, et vis, au fond, un enorme serpent endormi sur ses œufs_.’ Here again, by accident, an ophidian habit known in the 8th century has been revealed to the scientific of the 19th century. In the 17th century, when the Royal Society was founded and scientific information of all descriptions was welcome in their published _Transactions_, the subject of serpent brooding appeared in those pages. In vol. i. p. 138, a few terse words exactly express what modern ophiologists have of late years verified. ‘Several have taken notice that there is a difference between the brooding of Snakes and Vipers; those laying their Eggs in Dung-hills by whose warmth they are hatched, but these (Vipers) brooding their Eggs within their Bellies, and bringing forth live Vipers. To which may be added,—That some affirm to have seen Snakes lye upon their Eggs as Hens sit upon theirs.’ This was published in 1665.