OF HARTING. 299 



since then we have seen a dirty brick-red variety on 

 the sand at West Heath ; but in the greater number 

 of instances the ground colour of our viper is greyish 

 brown. As this is the one reptile to be carefully 

 avoided, and it may easily be confounded with the 

 perfectly harmless snake, it may be proper in this 

 place to point out the characters by which they may 

 be most readily distinguished from each other. To 

 say nothing of the difference in size, form, number, 

 and arrangement of the so-called scales on the heads 

 and other parts of the two reptiles which, indeed, 

 would scarcely be appreciated at a glance by any but 

 a professed herpetologist we can point out one 

 obvious character by which any person of ordinary 

 observation may be spared the very dangerous con- 

 sequences of petting a viper by mistake. The viper 

 has an unbroken band of dark lozenge-shaped spots, 

 like a chain of black diamonds, running from the head 

 to the tip of the tail down the whole length of the 

 back ; the snake has no such band, but is spotted all 

 over, and has a patch or two of yellow on each side of 

 the neck. In other respects they resemble each other 

 generally ; but the chain of diamonds is the danger 

 signal ; and, as this is sufficiently conspicuous, we 

 need not enter into further descriptive detail. The 

 viper preys on mice, birds, frogs, and, we believe, toads 

 also, as on one occasion we accidentally disturbed a 

 viper in the act of attacking a toad which appeared to 

 have received several wounds from the fangs of its 

 aggressor. We have intimated that, under ordinary 

 circumstances, the viper when intruded upon by man 

 will endeavour to beat a hasty retreat ; but, if any 

 attempt be made to thwart its praiseworthy intentions, 

 it is not slow to retaliate : we have seen one strike 

 viciously and repeatedly the barrel of a gun that was 

 pointed to within a few inches of its head, and the 

 blows were sensibly felt by the person holding the gun 

 by the stock. 



The Common Frog (Rana temporaries) is very 



