6 on the viper. Sept. 5. 



suanner by which the species is propagated ; I Ihali, 

 therefore, inform you of what came lately to my 

 knowledge of the viper or adder. 



About twelve months ago, an honest lab(j,uring 

 man in this place, while at his work, observed some- 

 thing lyirj-g on the side of a road, of which he at first 

 took little notice ; but soon after having occasion to 

 pafs that way, observed it was not in the same place 

 where he saw it at first, which raised his curiosity 

 to take a more narrow inspection of it; when, to 

 his great surprise, he found it to be an adder, of about 

 two feet three inches in length ; *the &in of which 

 was so thin that he plainly saw some living crea- 

 tures moving within it. He by some means broke 

 the fkin, out of which came several thousands of 

 young adders, rather more than one inch in length, 

 with blackheads, the. back a whitifh brown, the belly 

 more inclined to white and clear. Having made these 

 observations, he immediately dispatched them, in 

 case they ftiould have spread abroad in the country. 

 When he came home, and told his story of what he 

 *}iad seen, some believed him, -and others not, saying 

 they had been maggots he had found in the fkin of the 

 adder. And so the'e was no more about it, until a 

 few days ago, when a young man found, nearly in 

 the same place, several thousands of the same kind of 

 creatures, and nearly of the same size and colour, 

 marching along a road, but no ikin was to be seen 

 near by them. From which I infer, that when they 

 come to a certain size, they eat themselves out of it, 

 and begin their journey. As they were within two or 

 three feet of some long grafa, and about ten yards 



