54 NATURAL HISTOEY 



Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of but 

 one venomous reptile of the serpent kind in these kingdoms, 

 and that is the viper. As you propose the good of mankind 

 to be an object of your publications, you will not omit to 

 mention common salad-oil as a sovereign remedy against 

 the bite of the viper. As to the blind worm (anguis fragilis, 

 so called because it snaps in sunder with a small blow), I have 

 found, on examination, that it is perfectly innocuous. A 

 neighbouring yeoman (to whom I am indebted for some good 

 hints) killed and opened a female viper about the twenty- 

 seventh of May : he found her filled with a chain of eleven 

 eggs, about the size of those of a blackbird ; but none of them 

 were advanced so far towards a state of maturity as to contain 

 any rudiments of young. Though they are oviparous, yet they 

 are viviparous also, hatching their young within their bellies, 

 and then bringing them forth. Whereas snakes lay chains of 

 eggs every summer in my melon beds, in spite of all that my 

 people can do to prevent them ; which eggs do not hatch till 

 the spring following, as I have often experienced*. Several 

 intelligent folks assure me that they have seen the viper open 

 her mouth and admit her helpless young down her throat on 

 sudden surprises, just as the female opossum does her brood 

 into the pouch under her belly, upon the like emergencies ; 

 and yet the London viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr. Barring- 

 ton, that no such thing ever happens f. The serpent kind eat, 



* [The common snake is very susceptible of being tamed, and probably 

 of becoming attached to those who feed it and treat it kindly. One 

 which I formerly possessed was accustomed, when I was at breakfast, to 

 be let out of its box ; and on my pouring some milk into the hollow of 

 my hand, it immediately came, and, placing its head perpendicularly, 

 would suck up every drop ; and when satisfied it glided under the sleeve 

 of my coat, and coiled itself up between it and my arm, luxuriating in the 

 warmth. T. B.] 



t [The following note I communicated to Mr. Bennett's edition, 

 p. 102 : " I have been assured by a very honest and worthy gardener in 

 Dorsetshire that he had seen the young vipers .enter the mouth of the 

 mother when alarmed. I have never been able to obtain further reliable 

 evidence of the fact, though I have made the most extensive inquiries in 

 my power. If it be untrue, the popular error may have arisen from the 

 fact of fully-formed young having been found in the abdomen of the 



