sS VIPER. Class III: 



one venomous animal, and that of a kind which 

 encreafes fo little. 



They copulate in May, and are fuppofed to 

 be about three months before they bring forth. 



They are faid not to arrive at their full growth 

 in lefs than fix or feven years ; but that they are 

 capable of engendering at two or three. 



We have been often afTured by intelligent people 

 of the truth of a fact mentioned by Sir 'Thomas 

 Brown*, who was far from a credulous writer, 

 that the young of the viper, when terrified, will 

 run down the throat of the parent, and feek fhel- 

 ter in its belly in the fame manner as the young of 

 the oppojfum retire into the ventral pouch of the old 

 one. 



From this fome have imagined that the viper is 

 fo unnatural as to devour its own young-, we dif- 

 Food. believe the fact, it being well known that the food 

 of thefe ferpents is frogs, toads, lizards, mice, and, 

 according to Doctor Mead, even an animal fo large 

 as a mole. Thefe they fwallow entire-, which, 

 if we confider the narrownefs of their neck, fhews 

 it is capable of a diftenfion hardly credible, had 

 we not ocular proofs of the fact. 



It is alfo faid, from good authority, that they will 

 prey on young birds -, whether on fuch as nettle 

 on the ground, or whether they climb up trees for 

 them as the Indian ferpents do, we are quite un- 



* Vulgar errors, 114. 



certain j 



