REPTILES IN THE TARN AND THE GREEN LANES. 97 



A great deal of misconception has arisen respecting 

 the fatality of the viper's bite. Professor Bell states 

 that he had never seen a case that had terminated in 

 death. There can be little doubt, however, that fatal- 

 ities have arisen, but it has been when the person 

 bitten has been in a low or morbid condition of body. 

 The reader will find the pro and con statements on 

 this part of the subject discussed in Dr. Cooke's 

 'British Keptiles,' as also the repeated question 

 whether the viper swallows its young. 



The manner in which snakes crawl is perhaps not 

 generally known. Popular belief associates the 

 crawling movement with the primal curse, believing 

 that before the Fall, snakes or serpents were not 

 belly-crawlers. This we know to be wrong, for as 

 far back as the Eocene period, huge snakes lived in 

 what is now Great Britain long before the appear- 

 ance of man. Moreover, comparative anatomy sees 

 in the structure of snakes an adaptation to their 

 habits of life as perfect as the legs of a mammal or 

 the wings of a bird. An examination of the skeleton 

 of a snake will show that there are an enormous 

 number of ribs, which are extremely movable. 

 There is no breastbone, and the ends of all these 

 ribs are free. It is on the free ends that the snake 

 really crawls, and thus gets along pretty much after 

 the same fashion that a millipede or centipede crawls. 

 Each of the free ends of the ribs is attached by 

 muscular fibres to the large scales which may be 

 seen on the under side of snakes, and which are 



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