VIPER 165 



and the ground-colour of the upper - parts is light yellowish brown, with or 

 without a tinge of green, varying through every gradation of shade to very dark 

 brown. A darker zig-zag band, which may occasionally change into spots, com- 

 mences at the back of the head, and runs down the centre of the back, while 

 there is a line of dark spots on each side. The upper side of the head generally 

 shows eight dark spots ; the ground-colour of the under side is dark grey, rarely 

 black, or very light brownish yellow, and marked as a rule by several yellow 

 spots on each shield. The lighter coloured vipers are sometimes known as copper- 

 adders : some are quite black, when they are termed devil's adders. Of all land 

 snakes the viper has by far the widest range, being found from the coasts 

 of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific, and from the 41st or 42nd parallel 

 of north latitude in the south to the Arctic Circle in the north, although 

 in certain districts within this area it does not occur at all, and in others is 

 but rarely seen. In Germany, for instance, it is absent from the Odenwald and 

 the southern portion of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, as well as from Alsace, the 

 Palatinate, Upper Hesse, Birkenfeld, and Rhenish Prussia ; it is likewise not 

 met with in parts of Hesse-Nassau and Westphalia, nor in several districts of 

 Thuringia ; while, among other places in the Hartz, it is unknown on the 

 Brocken ; and in Brandenburg, apart from the environs of Berlin, it occurs only 

 in a few isolated spots. In the Saxon plains it is fairly numerous, though absent 

 from some localities ; it is more evenly distributed over Hanover, although 

 there, as in Schleswig-Holstein, it is not found on the moors ; and it is simi- 

 larly distributed in the neighbourhood of Bremen as well as in the Grand Duchy 

 of Oldenburg. 



In the same manner that the viper follows the viviparous lizard farthest 

 north, it also ascends next highest on the mountains ; in the mountains of central 

 Germany reaching to the crests, while in several Swiss localities it ranges up 

 to about 9000 feet, and in the Tyrol to almost 8000 feet. In such situations 

 the viper pays little regard to the nature of the ground, whereas in the 

 plains it prefers marsh and peat to bare sand and clay. Nevertheless, even in the 

 plains, it will leave its favourite marshy and peaty haunts, alternating here 

 and there with hills overgrown with low bilberry and cranberry bushes and 

 moss, and wooded, at least on the borders, with alder, birch, and other trees, to 

 visit sandy situations among meadows and fir-trees. It is also found in the grassy 

 steppes of Russia. As a rule, it avoids districts where the smooth maple grows, 

 and often appears in places to which it was previously a stranger, while at times 

 it disappears from many districts only to reappear again. 



When a solitary viper appears in a district in which it has previously been 

 unknown to exist, the cause may often be found in an inadvertent transportation 

 in brushwood, etc., from woods, as this snake often crawls beneath piles of wood 

 and bark, moss and heath, hay-stacks and corn-sheaves, although mouse-holes 

 and mole-burrows, stone-heaps, or rotten tree-stumps, clefts in rocks, or hollows 

 beneath the undergrowth are its actual haunts. In such hiding-places these 

 snakes sleep through the winter ; the general duration of their slumber being 

 from the end of September or the beginning of October, till the end of March 

 or early part of April. The slumber does not appear, however, to be very sound. 



