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The female viper is thicker than the male, and the tail is short 

 and stumpy. The V mark on the head, and the zigzag and round 

 spot marks on the body are genei'ally brown ; and the general 

 colour is more yellow or orange than in the male. The teeth are 

 smaller, and there are from one to two or three fangs on each 

 side of the mouth, and they are not so large as in the male. The 

 caudal glands are only half the length of those of the male. The 

 organs are all elongated as in the male ; and the ova vary in 

 number on each side, from nine to fourteen, more or less, and are 

 in different stages of development. The movements of the female, 

 especially after feeding, are much more sluggish and slow than 

 those of the male, and for this reason it can be easily destroyed. 

 The knowledge of the production of vipers is very imperfect ; 

 from one to four or five may be born about the same time ; 

 vipers pass from fourteen to twenty young, which are equally 

 savage with the older ones, between Ajjril and the end of September, 

 during which time the whole of the ova arrive at maturity. 

 The young viper when first bom is coiled up in the form of 

 a " tiiie lovers' knot," surrounded with a most fine and delicate 

 membrane. It is five or six inches long, and a quarter of an 

 inch thick, very lively and active, and capable of taking care of 

 itself : its teeth being perfect it can bite and feed, and does not 

 continue with the old one, but quickly escapes and can-ies out an 

 •independent existence. It is rare to see old and young vipers 

 together. Young vipers are generally found separate and alone, 

 under stones or gliding through dry grassy spots, or coiled up on 

 rocks, stones, and dry grass in sunny spots. 



Vipers feed freely upon the short-tailed field mouse ; no other 

 food was discovered in the stomachs of any that were killed upon 

 Lansdowu, or in Devonshire ; they invariably swallow the mouse 

 head foremost, and when squeezed out of the stomach it is covered 

 with slimy mucus, the tail first appearing in the mouth, and the body 

 scratched by the oblique teeth, and often some hair also removed. 

 A part of the mouse only is in the stomach, the tail and hind 

 parts are in the swallow, therefore not digested ; and digestion 

 slowly and completely extends from the head to the rest of the 

 body. It is astonishing what a large field mouse a small viper 



