68 VIPERADiE. 



is much less easily disturbed, and more tardy of flight than 

 the male. The number of young produced at each birth 

 varies from twelve to twenty, or even more. 



There are on record numerous statements of various 

 degrees of credibility, of the curious fact that the female 

 Viper allows her young ones to retreat into her stomach 

 for safety when alarmed by any sudden danger. These 

 statements generally declare that the mother, on the occur- 

 rence of any such emergency, opens her mouth, and that 

 the young immediately enter it, and pass into the stomach, 

 where they remain protected until the danger be passed, 

 or the Viper has gained a place of safety ; it is added, in 

 many cases, that, on killing the mother, the young have 

 been found within the stomach, and on being liberated 

 have at once reassumed all their former activity. The 

 question has been reopened of late by the publication of 

 several communications in a most respectable periodical, 

 to which the reader is referred.* It will be observed, 

 that with one exception, the writers have given their 

 statements only on hearsay ; and that in the one case 

 which is given from personal observation, the circumstance 

 is stated to have occurred when the writer was a boy. 

 The first impression made on the mind of one accustomed 

 to compare evidence with probability, and to weigh the 

 value of assertions by the rules of analogy, is that the mis- 

 take, if it be one, may have arisen from the viviparous 

 character of the animal ; but the opinion is so general, the 

 mass of evidence so considerable, and the details in many 

 cases so minute, as scarcely to allow of the question being 

 thus summarily disposed of; and in this state of doubt 

 upon so interesting a subject, it is perhaps better to await 



* See several numbers of the Gardeners' 1 Chronicle, in April, 1848, &c. 



