72 OUE REPTILES. 



when it meets with some small animal, which it 

 destroys at leisure and without anger, or when 

 it is seized by the tail or middle of the body, in 

 which case it turns round and plunges in its 

 fangs. As the teeth are buried in the tissues 

 of the body struck, the poison is driven down 

 the canals which pass through them by the 

 action of the muscles which close the mouth, and 

 the injection takes place with a force propor- 

 tionate to the vigour and rage of the reptile, 

 and the supply of poison with which it is fur- 

 nished.^* In the bite there are two punctures 

 corresponding to the poison-fangs. 



It has been taken for granted that the bite of 

 the Viper proves fatal in this country, without 

 perhaps a knowledge of instances in which it so 

 terminated. Professor Bell declares that he had 

 never seen a case which terminated in death, 

 nor had he been able to trace to an authentic 

 source any of the numerous reports of such a 

 termination which have at various times beei} 

 confidently promulgated. f Nevertheless, so 

 recently as the present summer (1865), a case 

 was reported in the papers, in which a woman 

 was bitten in Epping Forest, and shortly 

 afterwards died ; and we know that in France 

 and other continental countries many in- 



* M. Moquin-Tandon's " Zoologie Me"dicale." 

 f Bell's " British Reptiles," p. 59. 



