THE VIPER, OR ADDER. 79 



To this we may add another instance corroborative 

 and yet more conclusive, on the faith of a clergyman 

 with whose name and address we are furnished, and 

 in whose testimony we have the greatest confidence. 

 " Now, ' seeing is believing,' and I well remember 

 having seen in my boyhood — some thirty years ago 

 — an instance of the fact, the truth of which is 

 doubted, because resting merely on the testimony of 

 unscientific country people. Now, I have no pre- 

 tentions to science, but I vouch for the truth — above 

 referred to — of having, in my boyhood — when out 

 on a birds-nesting expedition, in a southern county, 

 with some three or four companions — come suddenly 

 upon a viper sunning her young brood on an open 

 grassy spot in a broad hedge-row : hedge-rows were 

 common in those days. Immediately she saw us, 

 she began to hiss, and away went the young, 

 previously some feet from her, ' helter-skelter ' to- 

 wards their mother ; rushed into her mouth — 

 expanded to an immense width for so small a creature 

 — and down her throat, one over the other, while 

 you could say ' Jack Robinson.' The space where 

 she was recreating was some twenty feet square, so 

 that before she could beat to cover, we, boylike, 

 being armed with sticks, had beaten her to death. 

 This done, one of the party with his knife opened 

 the body, and out came again the little ones, all of 

 which we killed. I do not remember the exact 



