^220 THE VIPER. 



number ; the shortest of which measured full seven inchea, 

 and were about the size of full-grown earth-worms. This 

 little fry issued into the world with the true viper spirit 

 about them, showing great alertness as soon as disengaged 

 from the belly of the dam : they twisted and wriggled about, 

 and set themselves up, and gaped very wide when touched 

 with a stick, showing manifest tokens of menace and defi- 

 ance, though as yet they had no manner of fangs that we 

 could find even with the help of our glasses. 



To a thinking mind, nothing is more wonderful than that 

 early instinct which impresses young animals with the notion 

 of the situation of their natural weapons, and of using them 

 properly in their own defence, even before those weapons 

 subsist or are formed. Thus a young cock will spar at his 

 adversary before his spurs are grown, and a calf or lamb 

 will push with their heads before their horns are sprouted. 

 In the same manner did these young adders attempt to bite 

 before their fangs were in being. The dam, however, was 

 furnished with very formidable ones, which we lifted up (for 

 they fold down when not used), and cut them off*mth the 

 point of our scissors. 



There was little room to suppose that this brood had ever 

 been in the open air before,* and that they were taken in 

 for refuge, at the mouth of the dam, when she perceived 

 that danger was approaching ; because then, probably, we 

 should have found them somewhere in the neck, and not m 

 the abdomen. 



* The very circumstance which Mr. White mentions, of the young vipers 

 being fully seven inches in length, proves that they had been in the open air 

 before, ae they have been known to leave the stomach of the dam v/hen they 

 bave lieen from one to two inches in length. From various facts commu- 

 uicated to me by viper-catchers and others, I can have no doubt but that the 

 joung vipers, when alarmed, take refuge in the inside of the parent, whe 

 extends her mouth for the purpose. — Eo^ 



