28 



VENOMS 



Habitat: France (especially Vendee, the Forest of Fontaine- 

 bleau, and the South), Pyrenees, Alsace-Lorrame, the Black Forest, 

 Switzerland, Italy and Sicily, and the Tyrol. 



This viper especially fre- 

 quents dry, rocky, and arid 

 hillsides, which are exposed 

 to the sun. Like the adder, 

 it hibernates in tree-trunks 

 and old walls. It lays from 

 6 to 15 eggs, from which 

 the living young immediately 

 issue, provided with poison. 

 It feeds upon small rodents, 

 worms, insects, and young 

 birds. Raptorial birds, 



storks, and hedgehogs pursue 



FiG.2-2.-Viperaaspis. (Natural size.) ^^ and deVOUr it in large 



(Prom the Forest of Fontaineblean.) numbers. 



yipera latastii. 



Intermediate between T'. asj^is and V. aimnodytes. Snout less 

 turned up into a corneous appendage than in the latter. Head 

 covered with small, smooth, or feebly keeled, subimbricate scales, 

 among which an enlarged frontal shield may sometimes be dis- 

 tinguished ; 5 — 7 longitudinal series of scales between the supra- 

 ocular shields ; 9 — 18 scales round the eyes ; '2 or 3 series between 

 the eyes and the labials ; nasal shield entire, separated from the 

 rostral by a naso-rostral. Body scales in 21 rows, strongly keeled ; 

 125—147 ventrals ; 32—43 subcaudals. 



Coloration grey or brown above, with a longitudinal zigzag 

 band, usually spotted with white ; head with or without spots on 



