1773.] TO JOHN BARTRAM. 457 



the more so, as it is correspondent with my own feelings : for it is 

 some years since, except in one or two instances only, that I h;:ve 

 even deprived the minutest individual of life. I consider it as a 

 heavenly spark, derived from the great Author and Fountain of life, 

 which is to be held sacred, and which I have no right to injure or' 

 destroy. 



The new species of Viper you mention, must have been a pro- 

 digious curiosity. What a dreadful creature ! Pity he could not 

 have been preserved, or at least his head, to have contemplated 

 the structure of his enormous fangs. * * 



Though we have, every year, very considerable importation of the 

 Italian viper, yet our apothecaries also employ their viper-catchers 

 here, though, as our sun is less fervent, 'tis possible the virtue [!] 

 of ours may not be equal to those from abroad. With respect to 

 size and appearance they are the same, as I have had proof enough 

 in my botanic rambles, having seen several of the former, both 

 male and female, not only in the Campania of Rome, where they 

 abound, but elsewhere. 



One of our British viper-catchers since dead I knew well ; 

 and have seen him turn out of a bag into a room, fifty or sixty of 

 them at once, all alive and vigorous. He informed me, that as soon 

 as he seized a viper, for which he was accoutred with a cleft stick, 

 and an almost impenetrable pair of gloves, with a steel instrument 

 he immediately wrenched out the fangs, in which operation, in 

 spite of all, he was now and then bit, and had many scars to show, 

 but a little warm olive oil, with which he always went provided, 

 rubbed into the wound, presently blunted the effects of the venom. 



The proper distinction, my dear friend, between the male and 

 female of this species is, the adder is the male, the viper the 

 female ; and very different they are. The adder is thicker, in 

 proportion to its length, than the female, and is of an unvaried 

 colour, a dusky reddish-brown, with scarcely any perceptible 

 marks on his back : on the contrary, the female, or viper, has a 

 very singular, irregular, light-coloured list, something resembling, 

 in its configuration, a chain of Death's heads, that runs quite down 

 the back to the extremity of the tail ; and she is also, on the upper 

 parts, of a brighter colour all over, and likewise more susceptible 

 of danger, and livelier than the male. On the belly they are, 

 both male and female, of a dun or darkish ash-colour. 



Mr. Banks' and Dr. Solander's circumnavigation of the globe 



