VIPERS. 61 



Linnaeus, in his Sy sterna Naturce, hints at what 

 Mr. Ellis advances, more than once. 



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 27th 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 expe- 

 rienced. 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. Barrington, that no 

 such thing ever happens. The serpent kind eat, 

 I believe, but once in a year ; or, rather, but only 

 just at one season of the year. Country people 

 talk much of a water-snake, but, I am pretty sure, 



