BRITISH REPTILES 
for instance ; or to a weakly child it might prove fatal, 
unless immediate measures were taken. Grown-up 
people, unless their blood were in a bad state, would 
suffer intense pain for a time, and probably have a fort- 
night's illness afterwards. All those not well acquainted 
with them I would advise to let them alone, and not 
handle them, dead or living. If those who kill them 
and leave them in the road, or paths, would crush the 
heads of the creatures under their heels, crushing 
them completely, they would be doing the public a 
service ; for the poison is as active in its action after 
the viper is dead, if a child should get pricked, as it 
is when the creature is living. 
Very beautiful but dangerous creatures, that are 
always ready to get away if they can, they are ; and 
much that has been written about them is mere non- 
sense of the worst kind. Fortunately, the viper is 
the only venomous reptile we have. When the cold 
weather sets in, they lie up for the winter, under the 
dry moss and heather-tangle of the heaths ; or in old 
birds' nests, full of dead leaves, up trees, in faggots that 
have been stacked, and at the bottoms of old posts 
gone rotten. 
This a friend of mine found out rather unpleasantly. 
He had dug all round a decayed post preparatory to 
placing a new one in its place. As he stooped down 
