112 PARENTAL CARE OF THE VIPER. 



he should do more damage, and then settled down to watch the progress of the poison within 

 my system 



" It was not slow to take effect ; first the wound looked and felt like a nettle sting, then 

 like a wasp sting, and in the course of a few minutes the whole joint was swollen, with much 

 pain. At this juncture my father, a medical man, arrived from a country journey, and set the 

 approved antidotes to work, ammonia, oil and lunar caustic, to the wound, having previously 

 made incisions about the punctured spot, and with paternal affection attempted to draw out 

 the poison by suction ; but nothing availed, and all sorts of horrid symptoms set in, fainting, 

 sickness, delirium, and fever ; the hand and whole arm to the shoulder greatly swollen and 

 discolored, with most intense pain. This state of things lasted for several days. I forget the 

 exact time, but I was not fully restored for more than a fortnight after the bite. 



" Since that day I have taken care to put my acquaintance with Serpents on such a footing 

 as to be able at a glance to tell the species of any of the common Snakes ; a piece of useful 

 knowledge most easily gained, and well worth the acquirement." 



It was a most providential circumstance that the reptile did not bite him immediately 

 after its capture, and that the wound was inflicted on the finger and not on the neck, as in the 

 one case he could hardly have reached his home, and in the other, the great swelling might 

 have caused suffocation, as is known to be the case with persons bitten in the neck by other 

 poisonous Serpents. 



A FEW words will not be out of place respecting the alleged capability of the Viper of 

 receiving its progeny into its mouth when in danger. 



A long-standing controversy on this subject has elicited a vast amount of correspondence, 

 the whole of which seems to resolve itself into two divisions, namely, communications from a 

 great number of persons who assert that they have seen the young Vipers crawl into their 

 parent's open mouth, and letters from two or three persons who say that they did not do 

 so, because such a proceeding is impossible, and contrary to the laws of nature. 



One of the most learned of the objectors remarks, that no amount of testimony can prevail 

 against reason, and that the persons who assert that they have seen the young Vipers crawl 

 into their mother's mouth, have fallen into the dangerous fallacy of believing what they saw. 

 Now this argument, novel though it may be to the scientific world in general, is perfectly 

 familiar to theologians as being the sheet-anchor of a certain school of controversialists, who 

 deny the credibility of the miraculous events narrated in the Scriptures. It has been repeat- 

 edly exploded in polemical controversy, and long abandoned by impartial thinkers, inasmuch 

 as it assumes a knowledge of all the laws of nature, and contracts the power of the Divine 

 Creator of the Universe within the narrow limits of the individual idiosyncracy and mental 

 capacities of the disputant. 



It has ever been conceded that, in all ages, the testimony of credible witnesses has been 

 the surest mode of confuting false reasoning and thereby eliciting truth ; so that when any 

 unprejudiced reasoner finds that a favorite theory is contradicted by the testimony of even one 

 trustworthy observer, much more when the united accounts of many competent judges all tend 

 to the same point, he feels that it is time for him to reflect whether, however perfect may be 

 the form of his syllogism, there may not be something wrong with his premises. Reasoning is 

 more liable to falsity than the senses to deception. It is easy enough to talk of a flagrant viola- 

 tion of the laws of nature, but before we venture to do so it is as well to be quite certain that 

 we are sure of the full extent of those laws. Who is there, even among the most learned, that 

 can define the full working of even a single known law and its ever-varying action under differ- 

 ent circumstances ? And who can venture to say that some hitherto unrecognized law may not 

 be in existence, which, if known and acknowledged, would account for the circumstances 

 which at present seem so unaccountable ? 



In the second place, if we are not to depend upon the testimony of our acknowledged 

 senses, on what are we to depend for the whole of natural philosophy, astronomy, or, indeed, 

 any other established science ? It is uimply on the testimony of our senses that all existing 



