Clafs IIL. vor p ER 19 
moveable, and can be raifed and depreffed at plea-. 
fure ; they are hollow from near the point to their 
bafe, near which is a gland that fecretes, prepares, 
and lodges the poifon; and the fame aétion that 
gives the wounds, forces from this gland, thro’ the 
tooth, the fatal juice into it. 
_ Thefe iflands may be particularly thankful for the 
bleffing they enjoy, in being poffeffed of only one 
venomous animal, and that of a kind which encreafes 
fo little. 
They copulate. in May, and are fuppofed to be 
about three months before they bring forth. 
They are faid not to arrive at their full growth in 
lefs than fix or feven years; but that they are ca- 
pable of engendering at two or three. : 
We have been often affured by intelligent people 
of the truth of a fact mentioned by Sir Thomas 
Brown *, who was far from a credulous writer, that _ 
the young of the viper, when terrified, will run down 
the throat of the parent, and feek fhelter in its belly 
in the fame manner as the young of the oppoffum 
retire into the ventral pouch of the old one. | 
From this fome have imagined that the viper is fo 
unnatural as to devour its own young; we difbelieve 
the fact, it being well <nown the food of thefe fer- 
pents is frogs, toads, lizards, mice, and, according 
to Doctor Mead, even an animal fo large as a mole. 
Thefe they fwallow entire; which if we confider the 
narrownefs of their neck, fhews it is capable of a 
diftenfion hardly credible, had we not ocular proofs 
of the fact. 
* Vulgar errors, UWA 
C2 Ir 
Foed, 
