The truth of ophidian incubation in at least one species was finally established at the _Musée d’Histoire_ at Paris in 1841, when _Python bivittatus_ or _Python à deux-raies_—named from two black lines diverging from the mouth—incubated her fifteen eggs. This celebrated serpent has enriched zoological annals in several points of interest. She assisted to confirm the question of whether snakes drink, and, as will be seen, whether they will take dead food. In connection with the present subject, the observations made by M. Dumeril during her incubation in the months of May and June 1841 are of such interest that I will translate from a paper read at the _Academy of Sciences_ in Paris, by M. Valenciennes, 19th July 1841, and published in the _Annales des sciences naturelles_, tom. xvi. 2^{me} série, p. 65. It will be remembered that M. Dumeril (to whom we are indebted for the most complete work on _Erpétologie générale_ that graces the shelves of our Great National Library) was at that time Professeur d’Erpétologie au Musée de Paris, and specially charged with the management of that part of the menagerie. M. Valenciennes began his paper by reminding his audience that the temperature of birds rises in various degrees during the period of incubation, proposing the questions, ‘Do reptiles not offer a similar phenomenon?’ ‘Do they never brood on their eggs?’ As far as was known of native reptiles, the answer would be in the negative. However, M. Lamarrepiquot, in his travels in Chandernagor and the isle of Bourbon, seems to show that a large serpent of India, and some other species, _se plaçait sur ses œufs et les echauffait en developpant pendant ce temps une chaleur notable_. Many eminent naturalists doubted this, until it was confirmed in the Paris python, in which was an example of prolonged and uninterrupted incubation for the space of fifty-six days.