96 BRITISH REPTILES 
when the hand touches them as they lie coiled up, 
exactly the colour of the dead leaves, they strike, 
naturally, in mere self-defence. 
I have lived where these reptiles were very numer- 
ous ; yet not one man, woman, or child, have I known 
to get bitten, although the creatures were round about 
in all directions. To have a large one coiled up 
within a foot of you is quite close enough ; stand still 
if you please that is, if you are not prejudiced against 
the whole family and watch the creature. It is 
coiled, and the neck thrown back over half the coils, 
the pupils of the eye are exactly like those of a cat, 
all ablaze, and the tongue plays in and out, ready for 
instantaneous action. But finding that you do not 
molest it, it slowly uncoils and slips away. I have 
good reason to think that the vipers are very much 
abroad in the hot nights of midsummer ; for I have 
captured them crossing the roads, from the fields that 
bordered them, very early in the morning, in fact at 
sunrise. There they had been hunting for the large- 
headed, short-tailed field-voles, which are quite as 
large as any ordinary half-grown rat. I know this, for I 
persuaded them by a very simple process to show me 
what had caused their aldermanic girth. The voles 
had only just been swallowed. The pupil of the 
viper's eye when at rest shows as a dark vertical slit ; 
