2y 



VENOMS 



Habitat: France (especially Vendee, tlie Forest of Fontaine- 

 blean, and the South), Pyrenees, Alsace-Lorraine, the Black Forest, 

 Switzerland, Italy and Sicily, and the Tyrol. 



This viper especially fre- 

 quents dry, rocky, and arid 

 hillsides, which are exposed 

 to the sun. Like the adder, 

 it hibernates in tree-trunks 

 and old walls. It lays from 

 G to 15 eggs, from which 

 the living young immediately 

 issue, provided with poison. 

 It feeds upon small rodents, 

 worms, insects, and young 

 birds. Eaptorial birds, 



storks, and hedgehogs pursue 



Fw. ^-.^-V,]:cra,ujns. (Natural size.) '* ^"d devour it 111 large 



(From tbe Forest of Foutaiuebleau.) numbers. 



Vipera latastii. 



Intermediate between I', axjjis and V. ainmodijtes. Snout less 

 turned up into a corneous appendage than in the latter. Head 

 covered with small, smooth, or feebly keeled, subimbricate scales, 

 among which an enlarged frontal shield may sometimes be dis- 

 tinguished ; ;) — 7 longitudinal series of scales between the supra- 

 ocular shields : U — V6 scales round the eyes; '2 nr 3 series between 

 the eyes and tlie lal)ials ; nasal shield entire, separated from the 

 rostral by a naso-rostral. Body scales in 21 rows, strongly keeled ; 

 1'25— 147 ventrals : 32—43 subcaudals. 



Coloration grey or brown above, with a longitudinal zigzag 

 band, usually spotted with white ; head with or without spots on 



