what purpose, and under what cir- | cumstances, did the Gipsies assume the Christian and surnames of Great Britain and Europe generally? The natural answer is that it was to protect themselves against the severity of the laws passed against them. A tribal tradition (as distinguished from a private family one) on a subject of that kind would be easily and accurately handed down from so recent a time as Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. Now, the tradition among all the British Gipsies is that their British names were originally assumed from those of peop'e of influence, among whom the tribe settled, as they scattered over the country, and had districts assigned to them, under chieftains, with a king over all, and tokens or passes to keep each in his district, or from infringing on the rights of other families. All that is fully explained in Simson's History of the Gipsies (pp. 116, 117, 205, and 218), where will also be found (p. 206) the fancy the tribe have always had for terming themselves "braziers," and having the word put on their tombstones. And how a person can, in the most important sense of the word, be a Gipsy, with blue eyes and fair hair, as well as black, no matter what his character or habits, calling or creed may be, is also very elaborately explained in the same work. And that anticipated Mr. James Wyatt, who said, in Notes and Queries, on the 2d January last, that John Bunyan could not have been a Gipsy, owing to his personal appearance, as he was "Tall of stature, strong-boned, with sparkling eyes, wearing his hair on the upper lip after the old British fashion, his hair reddish, but in his latter days sprinkled with grey; his nose well cut, his mouth not too large, his forehead something high, and his habit always plain and modest." To the History of the Gipsies, and to the forthcoming Contributions in both of which Mr. Borrow is my soul must needs be happy. Now, again, I found within me a great longing to be resolved about this question, but could not tell how I should. At last I asked my father of it, who told me, No, we [his father included] were not." Language like this is pregnant with meaning when used by a man who "Was simply a Gipsy of mixed blood, who must have spoken the Gipsy language in great purity; for considering the extent to which it is spoken in England to-day, we can well believe that it was very pure two centuries ago, and that Bunyan might have written works even in that language.”—Contributions, p. 159.-" It would be interesting to have an argument in favour of the common native hypothesis. . . . . In the face of what Bunyan said of himself, it is very unreasonable to hold that he was not a Gipsy, but a common native, when the assumption is all the other way. Let neither, however, be assumed, but let an argument in favour of both be placed alongside of the other to see how the case would look."-Ib., p. 160. In the forthcoming Contributions an effort is made to have the subject of the Gipsies placed on a right foundation, and the race, in its various mixtures of blood and positions in life, openly acknowledged by the world; John Bunyan taking his place "as the first (that is known to the world) of eminent Gipsies, the prince of allegorists, and one of the most remarkable of men and Christians. The remarks I have made about two writers in particular are not altogether inapplicable to Mr. A. Fergusson, United Service Club, Edinburgh, who wrote thus, in Notes and Queries, on 19th December, 1874, on "Gipsy Christian names and tombs": "The ideas of most people, however, on the subject, derived chiefly from sensational novels and the mystified tales of George Borrow, are, I imagine, still rather hazy." However, I give him, as follows, VASHTI, WIFE OF T. Worton, DIED Nov. 26, 1851, Æ. 26 YR. This family and some of their connections I was well acquainted with. I found them of various mixtures of blood; some with the Gipsy features and colour strongly marked, and others bearing no resemblance to the tribe. They all spoke the language. One of the sons-in-law was a half-caste Scotch Hindoo from Bombay. They did not have much education, but were naturally intelligent, and smart and 'cute.* In addition to the investigations made in church registers, I would suggest that the records of the different criminal courts in Bedfordshire, (if they still exist) should be examined, to find if people of the name of Bunyan (and how designated) are found to have been on trial, and for what offences. *This was an English Gipsy family. II-MR. FRANK BUCKLAND AND WHITE OF SEL BORNE.* N looking over Mr. Buckland's so many intelligent people maintain edition of White's Natural it as a fact personally known to History of Selborne, I find some themselves. The course adopted strange remarks made by him on by him was not for want of informathe question alluded to by White, tion, for (not to speak of many whether vipers, on the approach of others) he had a number of articles danger, swallow their young. White from myself in Land and Water, himself was the very embodiment and others, in his possession for of dignity and simplicity, candour several months, which did not apand courtesy, and was open to con- pear in that journal, but which were viction on every question relating again laid before him in a work to natural history, let the informa- published last year under the title tion come from whatever direction of Contributions to Natural History, it might. Thus he said:and Papers on other Subjects. In that work I said, in regard to snakes swallowing their young, that "Monographers, come from whence they may, have, I think, fair pretence to challenge some regard and approbation from the lovers of natural history." Men that undertake only one district are much more likely to advance natural knowledge than those that grasp at more than they can possibly be acquainted with.' "Candour forbids me to say absolutely that any fact is false because I have never been witness to such a fact." Mr. Buckland, when discussing the question, should have presented in a condensed form the pro and con of it, and given his own conclusion, so that the reader could have formed an estimate of his judgment and of the subject generally. In place of that, he has not, even in the most distant manner, alluded to the affirmative side of the question, nor suggested how the idea could have arisen, or how it happens that * This and the following article were of fered, unsuccessfully, to some English publications. I give them in the original form, that they may carry more weight, or be more interesting, than if they had been specially got up for the use they are now put to, although they will present the appearance of a repetition of some of the ideas and facts given. "I consider the testimony so complete that nothing could be added to it, although it would be very interesting to have a careful examination of the anatomy of the snake to ascertain the physical peculiarities connected with the phenomenon described" (p. 3). 'As in mathematics we require to know some things to demonstrate others; so in snakes swallowing their young it is not necessary for a man of science or common sense, if he will but exercise it, to see it done in order to believe it; but when ocular testimony is added, it sets the question at rest beconsidered is the anatomy of the snake yond all doubt. The next thing to be immediately after the birth of her progeny; but that could not be so easily ascertained as that she swallows them (p. 38). "I am not aware of the throat of a snake having been examined to see whether it could allow an instant passage for her young. . . . If a throat were examined, it should be that of a snake that was alleged or supposed to have swallowed her progeny" (p. 26). "It will be difficult to find this passage unless when it is in use, for it will become so contracted at other times as to escape any observation that is not very minutely made" (p. 36). That evidence I have not seen impeached by any one. Part of it consisted of a paper read by Professor G. Brown Goode, of the University of Middletown, Connecticut, before the Science Convention at Portland, in the State of Maine, in 1873, which furnished evidence from nearly a hundred people from many parts of the United States; several gentlemen present testifying of their own knowledge to the fact of snakes swallowing their young, particularly Professor Sydney J. Smith, of the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale College, who added to the testimony of the paper his personal evidence, that he had seen with his own eyes' young snakes entering and issuing from the mouth of an older one. never Mr. Buckland brings forward no evidence whatever in support of himself and his friends as "antiswallowers." What he says amounts virtually to this, that what he and they do not know, or do not understand, has no existence in fact! The twelve verses of the song, to the tune of Lord Lovel, composed by Mr. Henry Lee, in connection with himself and Mr. Higford Burr, in attempted derision of "swallowers," has no bearing on the question at issue. He, indeed, advances Mr. Davy, the bird-catcher and dealer, who and whose employès saw a viper swallow her young, and therefore pronounce the idea a story of Old Mother Hubbard!" He also quotes Mr. Holland, the keeper of the snakes at the Zoological Gardens, who never saw it done in his collection of snakes; from which Mr. Buckland infers that the idea is a romance. attach no weight to what Mr. Davy says; but Mr. Holland is entitled to a particular notice. I would ask him if he knows for certainty how vipers are born. If he finds that the mother passes the young in the shape of an egg or ball, about the size of a blackbird's egg, when they immediately disengage themselves I from the covering after it has touched the ground, how can he find a viper full of young, upwards of seven inches long, and so active as to instantly fight or run, unless they afterwards entered her by the mouth? Like Mr. Davy, the birdman, he will doubtless scratch his head and cry, "Old Mother Hubbard!" Most likely both gentlemen's knowledge is limited to their own observations, and, like such people generally, they are poor judges of what has been observed by others under different circumstances. Thus Mr. Holland concludes that vipers do not, and therefore cannot, swallow their young while in a state of nature, because they do not do it while in captivity --a most illogical conclusion. His vipers have either been born in captivity, or become reconciled to it through time, so that their house, cage, or den is the only place of safety they know of. And for what purpose would a viper swallow her young under these circumstances? It could not be to carry them anywhere, or shield them from the weather, or protect them against danger that was avoidable; the last being the reason always given by people who have seen the phenomenon. This I explained in Land and Water, when I also met the objection of the viper-catchers. It would be interesting to be told by Mr. Buckland how viviparous snakes are actually born. He cuts open a viper, and finds inside a string or necklace of eggs about an inch in length. Further on in the season he cuts open another viper, and finds the same number (as it may be) of young, upwards of seven inches long, complete and active snakes, lying all sorts of ways, with no remains of the eggs. that these have not yet been born; whereas, in fact, they had previously been born in the way described, and had returned to the same chamber by the mouth. An assumption He says or supposition of Mr. Buckland on a point like this amounts to nothing. It would also be interesting if he would tell us what animals are not covered. or partly covered, with something, however slight, when they come into the world. If he finds, as a matter of fact, that vipers are born singly, in the open air, with a covering on them, how can he possibly resist the conclusion that those found inside of a mother, as described, had entered her by the mouth? That there may be no question on this point, we find in America that oviparous snakes are found with young inside of them which were hatched in the soil; the young having been seen to run in and run out by people whose evidence it would be out of the question to dispute. Mr. Buckland's ideas on this sub and active," as described.* On the | From this one would conclude, Another strange thing to be noticed in Mr. Buckland's notes on ject are very hazy and vague. Thus a writer in Land and Water, on the 27th of September, 1873, said that a gentleman killed a viper, and "observing it to be of unusual thickness about the middle, he put his foot upon the place, thinking that the upon the place, thinking that the reptile had recently swallowed a mouse. The pressure brought out ten young vipers from the mouth of the old one. Some of them were about five inches long, and some shorter ; but all were alive and act- White, besides not admitting a ive, as if they had previously seen single word in opposition to his the light of day, and had again theory as distinguished from the sought shelter in the parent." Mr. fact of snakes swallowing their Buckland admitted all this, but young, is, that he does not admit of White's own evidence, which was maintained that the young had not been born, but were squeezed out of complete, excepting that he did not the mouth!—a rather strange phe-know) how vipers are born. White tell us (because he says he did not nomenon for the young inside of an wrote thus of vipers:egg or covering to be forced out of the mouth, in the direction of which, according to Mr. Buckland's theory, there is no passage. One would naturally think that the pressure of the foot would have converted the contents of the mother into a jelly, or forced them out towards the tail, rather than produced a stream of viperlings" from her mouth," alive Though they are oviparous, yet they are viviparous also, hatching their young within their bellies, and then bringing them forth.” In supporting this assertion, it would have been interesting had he *For the particulars of this phenomenon see note at page 39. |