302 



can swallow. The viper never attempts to bite unless disturbed 

 and irritated. In the neighbourhood of Cheltenham a young lad 

 was bitten in Ked Wood, in the act of picking a flower, a viper 

 being coiled up beneath it : he suffered some days from the bite, 

 but eventually recovered. A friend of mine was nearly bitten in 

 gathering a cucumber, a male viper being coiled up near the stem, 

 which he fortunately saw in time. 



Vipers are become very common ever\'where, much more so than 

 formerly. In Gloucestershire, the Forest of Dean, and around 

 Lansdown they are more numerous than the common ring snake. 

 In Devonshire they are very prevalent ; in and all around Dartmoor 

 you may see a dozen of them for every ringed snake you meet with. 

 An old viper that was forwarded to Mr. F. Buckland last 

 September had two fully formed young ones squeezed out of its 

 throat. It was supposed she had swallowed them, but they were 

 found to have escaped from the delicate egg bag into the 

 stomach and up the throat, another coiled up was discovered 

 in the ovi-duct. She was seen coiled up on a dry bank and 

 killed with a stick ; her stomach was much distended, and it 

 ■was supposed at the time to be so from having swallowed a short- 

 tailed field mouse. It is very easy to squeeze a field mouse out of 

 the stomach of a viper, and in the act of so doing two young vipers 

 were forced from the ovi-duct into the stomach and up the throat. 

 Now arrives the question — do vipers when disturbed ever swallow 

 their young 1 The shape of the teeth sloping backwards, the narrow 

 long throat, the long stomach digesting rapidly, and contraction of 

 those parts being the state of health or repose, oppose that opinion 

 on the part of the old one. The young ones being formed perfectly 

 to defend themselves and fulfil all their instincts, and their size, when 

 passing from the old ones, indicate no necessity for such an act on 

 the pai't of the old one. And further, the large size of yoiiug vipers 

 when born, being from five to six inches long and three-quarters of 

 an inch in circumference, would greatly distend the throat of the 

 old one in the act of swallowing five or six, or even one or two 

 of such young ones, much more than a field mouse, which is 

 always lubricated with mucous secretion, and seems to take some 

 time to pass into the stomach. 



