832 Reptiles, 



hedgehog, which seemed perfectly regardless of the many bites it re- 

 ceived on the snout. 



The viper, if molested after feeding, generally disgorges its prey ; 

 one which I captured, and put into a large glass jar, ejected three 

 mice in an advanced stage of decomposition. It died in about three 

 months after, having refused to take food. The usual story of young 

 vipers taking refuge down the throat of the mother, has, I believe, no 

 foundation in fact. I have never seen it take place in the woods, and 

 although the females in the pit very frequently produced young, they 

 never seemed to pay the least regard to them. The disposition of 

 serpents is, indeed, eminently unsocial. In selecting their winter 

 retreat, it does occasionally happen that several creep under the roots 

 of the same bush ; and on the first warm days of spring, when they 

 emerge from their cells in a very languid state, two or three males, 

 which appear a week or ten days earlier than the females, may be 

 found together, but without taking the least notice of each other ; 

 whilst in summer, it is very rare to meet with two together. The 

 peasants, indeed, tell stories of snake-congresses, that might furnish a 

 second Pliny with materials — of many hundred vipers sitting on the 

 branches of a tree, and at the top the serpent-king, with his golden 

 crown, which, by the bye, is nothing more or less than the two yellow 

 spots on the neck of Natrix communis, seen through the chromatic 

 lens of superstition. In the summer of 1837, I heard that a game- 

 keeper, living on the banks of the Neisse, near Rothenberg, had found 

 an immense assemblage of snakes' eggs. Accordingly, the next day, 

 I called upon him, and he accompanied me to the spot. I found a 

 small hollow in the earth, which might have been occasioned by the 

 uprooting of a tree, filled with dead leaves, amongst which the eggs 

 were really deposited in very large quantity. I considered them to 

 be the eggs of Natrix communis, as those which I brought away af- 

 terwards proved to be. It seems not improbable that the female ser- 

 pents, aware of the favourable effects of such a large mass of decaying 

 vegetable matter, had resorted to it from all sides to deposit their eggs. 



The viper has many enemies besides the hedgehog, amongst which 

 the buzzard (Buteo vulgaris) is the most formidable, and possesses, 

 though in a smaller degree, the power of resisting poison. The jay 

 and the roller likewise occasionally destroy vipers. The best method 

 of destroying the viper, or indeed any serpent which you may wish to 

 preserve, is to administer creosote, or nicotin, which prove fatal in 

 about one minute. J. W. Slater. 



