Sli 



NATURAL HISTOJtY. 



venom, and only entwines and swallows them, but if the Viper stops a mouse with its teeth, the venom 

 will enter the wound. Formerly Vipers were in demand, for Viper-broth was a remedy, or the Snake 

 might be boiled like a fish, or given as a powder to those patients who suffered from ulcers, or a corrupt 

 state of the system. They were caught in numbers with a cleft or forked stick which the Viper- 

 catchers drove down immediately behind the head. They then seized the creature by the tail, and 

 put it in a bag. Like many other Snakes, Vipers live long without food, and they do not feed well in 

 captivity. They are, of course, viviparous, and the young, sometimes ten or fifteen in number, may be seen 

 with the parent, looking like so many worms with large heads. The eggs are hatched within the Viper, 





CERASTES VIPER. 



and hence it has happened that eggs have been laid and young Vipers hatched from them. Whether 

 the young take refuge in the mouth of the old one, and crawl into her throat in times of danger, or 

 whether they get under her body and glide away, are questions which have provoked much discussion. 

 The young Vipers certainly could get into their parent's mouth, but whether they could get out again 

 is another thing, and therefore it is best to disbelieve this remarkable parental trait in the Viper, of 

 protecting her young in her mouth. 



The ancients had a notion that the young Vipers killed their mother in coming into the world, 

 and hence one or more of these parricidal reptiles were placed in a bag with a human parricide and 

 <lrowned as the punishment of this greatest of crimes. 



Another example of the Viper group belongs to those which are more or less " horned." It lives 

 in Hungary, Dalmatia, and Egypt, and has a small, soft horn covered with scales on the muzzle.* 

 The Horned Sand Snake of Egypt, or the Cerastes Viper, which is of a greyish tint, and hides 



* Viper a ammodytes. 



