Genre:

Poetry

Subjects:

Zoology, Animal Development, Breeding, Animal Behaviour, Feeling, Heat, Instruments, Scientific Practitioners, Experiment

    Written from the perspective of the female python at the Zoological Society Gardens, who condemns the 'British public' for causing her eggs to rot and for keeping only one of the eggs which has produced an abnormally small snake. Inveighs against Philip L Sclater for confining her in a coil, and emphasises the python's 'sensibilities' and 'horror of intrusion' by scientific practitioners. She goes on to observe that all a 'snake-mother' wants are the warm conditions under which her eggs can develop; instead she was prodded and poked, and had her peace and comfort rudely disturbed by a fellow trying to measure her temperature with his 'Zambra and Negretti' (the thermometer-making firm of Joseph W Zambra and Enrico A L Negretti) or by Richard Owen. Concludes that 'those soi-distant men of science, / On time and kindly nature are too clever for reliance' and in their 'anxiety' have plucked her eggs too soon. She goes on to ask the scientists to consider her feelings—notably, the thrill that spread through her like 'the electric fire' when she felt 'the stirrings blend'—but notes that scientific men are unlikely to credit her with feelings.