HJ McCooey 1890-

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.
Sir,—About two weeks ago a telegram from Wagga Wagga appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, stating that a man who had been bitten by a snake had cured himself by submerging the bitten part in a running stream. Just allow me to say that there is nothing new or startling in this method of cure for snake bite, which is at once simple and effectual. I speak advisedly and with no small amount of experience in the matter, and I say that submergence in a running stream is an effectual cure for snake bite. I have tested the matter and proved it. This cure was known to the aborigines of this colony and practised by them long before a dispensary was founded in Australia, or a white man crossed the Murray. Not only did the aborigines cure themselves and their dogs when bitten by snakes by submergence in running streams, but they purified and made fit for food any fruits, yams, and vegetables, otherwise poisonous by precisely the same means. Their treatment of the "budawong" is an instance in point.
A dog, when bitten by a snake if left to itself, will invariably make for water and lie in it, drinking copiously until it recovers. I have seen many dogs cure themselves this way: and on one occasion I know a dog which was in a comatose state and dead to every appearance, to come to and recover after being thrown into the Wollindilly River. Copious bathing unquestionably counteracts snake bite, and in all human probability is one of the best of all known cures. It is simple, and as a rule running streams and waterholes are as convenient and as easily found, though perhaps not so plentiful, as country actors; therefore, many will doubtless follow the example set them by the man at Wagga Wagga. In conclusion permit me to say that I have purposely abstained from treating this question theoretically. I simply put forward facts derived from experimental knowledge. The matter is easily tested, therefore let those who disbelieve me set to work and prove me wrong.

I am, &c.,
H. J. M'COOEY.
March 31.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.
     Sir,—In your issue of the 1st instant Mr. A. G. Graves wishes to know if snakes destroy each other for the purposes of food. Most certainly they do; but I cannot call to mind any instance of a snake of any given species devouring another of a similar species. I should be in no way surprised to find snakes devouring their own species, or even their own offspring, but repeat that I have met with no instances of the kind. It is quite common, however, to find species of Typhlops in the stomachs of Diemenia superciliosa and Pseudechis porphyriacus ; and only a few weeks ago I caught during the night a ringed Vermicella which was in the act of swallowing a half-grown specimen of Ruppell's Typhlops. The young of Morelia spilotes very frequently fall a prey to the black snake in the coast district. Frogs, skinks, and young or small snakes are more frequently found in the stomachs of full-grown snakes than any other kind of food, and instances of the kind referred to by Mr. Graves are not
at all uncommon.
     With regard to snakes swallowing their young to protect them in moments of danger, for an authenticated instance I beg leave to refer Mr. Graves to the columns of the Sydney Morning Herald of March, 1883, in which a discovery made by me at Coogee is dealt with. The paragraph referred to appeared between the 15th and 20th of March, 1888, and as all the leading newspapers in Australia copied it from the Herald, I am not a little surprised to find Mr. Graves so much in the dark about the matter. When any scientific discovery is announced in the Sydney Morning Herald the world can read it, and it seems strange, considering the world-wide publicity my discovery received, that it escaped Mr. Graves's attention.
     Unquestionably Australian snakes swallow their young to protect them from danger. I can say with equal certainty that the young, when swallowed, pass into the stomach, and I seize this opportunity of emphatically and unreservedly denying that Australian snakes are provided with any "false stomach" or marsupial pouch for the reception of their young.
     In the course of the comments which followed the announcement of my discovery a correspondent whose name I now forget wrote a letter to the Herald, in which he stated, inter alia, that Australian snakes had a "false stomach extending from the throat to the anus," into which the young passed when swallowed. This statement was so far-reaching and so recklessly bold, so cunningly and confidently propounded, that I admit it quite staggered me. Instead of replying to this statement, and indulging in the wild haphazard theories and statements so characteristic of irresponsible argument-loving critics, I set to work to investigate the matter in order that I might speak with confidence. During the summer of 1888 I dissected 34 female snakes in every stage of pregnancy, and during the season just passing I have dissected over 40, and every such dissection has given a flat and infallible denial to this wild and irrational theory. On the correctness of my own individual judgment in this matter I am prepared to stake my scientific reputation, and challenge anyone in Australia to produce an example or bring forward one scintilla of evidence in support of the existence of a "false stomach," or marsupial pouch, in Australian snakes. The theory is so utterly absurd, so glaringly irrational, so helplessly and transparently untenable, that it deserves to be mentioned only that it may be ridiculed.

I am. &c.,
H. J. M'COOEY.
Brawlin, April 6.

July 17, 1890

REFERRING to a telegram from Cootamundra which appeared in our yesterday's issue, with regard to two new species of lizards announced to have been discovered by Mr. H. J. M'Cooey, Mr. J. Douglas-Ogilby, of the Australian Museum, writes as follows:-

"In order to avoid confusion and the duplication of species, it is as well to let those of your readers who are interested in the subject know what those reptiles are. The Ablepharus mentioned is A. Coulengeri, described by the writer in the first part of the 'Records of the Australian Museum,' and the black Egernia is, as mentioned by me in a letter to Mr. M'Cooey, merely a dark-coloured specimen, not even capable of being raised to varietal rank, of the very common E. striolata. Mr. M'Cooey wisely does not mention his Melbourne friend's name ; but his knowledge of lacertilian reptiles must be very limited if he really considers this common species to be new."

James Douglas Ogilby (1853–1925)

Ogilby began work at the museum on 14 February 1885 at a salary of £250 and proved an enthusiastic and energetic worker, publishing numerous notes, papers and reports on reptiles and mammals as well as fishes. Next year he compiled the catalogue of fishes for the report of the Commissioners of Fisheries for New South Wales and in 1887 published Catalogue of Fishes and Other Exhibits at the Royal Aquarium, Bondi. That year he was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society of London.

Dismissed in 1890 after many warnings for drunkenness on the job, Ogilby continued his prodigious research activities outside the museum on a contract basis.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.
     Sir,—As Mr. J. D. Ogilby, of the Australian Museum, has taken exception to a telegram from Cootamundra, which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald of the 16th instant, respecting a black lizard (Egernia striolata) which I found some time ago, I desire to make an explanation. Mr. Ogilby pretends to think that the Herald's telegram refers to this lizard as a new species; but any ingenuous and unprejudiced reader will see at a glance the telegram in question will bear no such construction.
     The Herald's telegram, which is quite correct, refers to the lizard in question not as a new, but as a black, species. Mr. Ogilby has been pleased to tender some common place second-hand information concerning the normal form of Egernia strioiata, which he knows quite well is not new to me. However, this black Egernia striolata was never seen by Mr. Ogilby until I sent it to him, and his attitude now is scarcely decent, and certainly ungrateful. On receipt of this lizard which, through a delay of the postal department, went slightly bad—Mr. Ogilby, in a letter to me, said, inter alia, "It is a curious melanistic variety of Egernia striolata, one I should much like to have been able to preserve."
     I do not, and never did, pretend to know everything. I have much indeed to learn concerning the highly interesting ophidians of Australia, although I am a native of New South Wales ; and I venture to think that even Mr. Ogilby may yet learn something new concerning Australian reptiles. As regards the lizard known as Boulenger's Ablepharus, I discovered it and M'Cooey's Lygosoma near Cootamundra last November, and I challenge Mr. Ogilby to deny this.

July 19.
I am, &c.,
H. J. M'COOEY.

July 23, 1890 - THE LIZARDS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.
Sir,—In the controversy in your journal respectingMr. M'Cooey's lizard discovery, Mr. Ogilby, of the Government Museum, opens out one or more matters of public interest that, with your permission, I would like to say a word or two upon. Mr. Ogilby is undoubtedly right in correcting and putting his foot down on the craze for naming varieties in the natural history world; but that gentleman could have been less vigorous in his onslaught on Mr. M'Cooey considering that the greatest sinners in the direction of naming varieties are to be found among professional scientists.These gentlemen have no excuse for their errors, as they have the whole series of preserved specimens for their care for comparison, and a valuable library for reference; while on the other hand, if a student of natural history applies to the Museum for information or for entry into the library, he is met in a spirit of antagonsim. And this, it must be borne in mind, in a public institution, wholly supported from funds provided by the State.

July 22.
JAMES S. BRAY.

Of the accounts that have appeared in print—and there are many—the greatest weight has been given by herpetologists to those of Beauvois (1799, p. 371) and Ball (1915, p. 343), for both were trained observers. Yet Beauvois was, at the time of his experience, recovering from a serious illness that had greatly weakened him; and Ball, like so many others, recounted observations made years before as a boy at school.
The fact that this protective scheme is nearly always attributed to species of snakes that give birth to living young, instead of to egg-layers, is both a favourable and unfavourable criterion: favourable because it could be only these snake species whose young would be found in the company of their mothers, even for a brief time; unfavourable in that only in the case of these mothers could unborn young be inaccurately assumed to have been found in the mother’s throat or stomach, although really found in the uteri.
Reese (1942, p. 57; 1949, p. 174) believes that the existence of a habit of this kind should not be denied on purely negative evidence. The obvious reply is that if the habit is a myth, negative evidence will be the only kind available.

How stories of this kind may be duly confirmed in the retelling is suggested by the following chain: Ellen Gallwey (1934, p. 99) says that adders in England probably swallow their young for protection, as had previously been supposed, since a similar practice upon the part of rattlesnakes has been demonstrated by “Dr. Rudolph Menger, the American herpetologist.” But Miss Gallwey did not have access to Menger’s original paper; she had only second- or third-hand paraphrase. Actually, Menger (1905, p.15; 1913, p.154) merely recounts the observations of a friend; he makes no claim to having seen a rattler swallow its young. Incidentally, Menger asked a dealer who had handled 40,000 snakes within the previous 5 years whether he had ever seen such an occurrence, and received a negative reply.
This brings up another point, now of importance, that weighs against the protective-swallowing theory. Today there are annually born in the United States under accurate observation in laboratories and zoos, hundreds of broods of ovoviviparous snakes for every one under such observation 50 years ago. Yet, with all this multiplicity of broods, no mother has ever been seen to swallow her young for protection. Some of the mothers had been long in captivity, others but a few days when the young arrived. With all necessary allowances for the artificial effects of captivity, they would not completely nullify adherence to so ancient a custom if the story were true. In captivity, snakes may become tame and lethargic, yet they still retain many normal patterns of activity—the male combat dance, methods of courtship, and their ways of capturing and subduing food, for examples. Certainly some mother, of all the hundreds under observation, would by now have temporarily forgotten her cage and would have opened her mouth to protect her young. But none have done so.