VIPERA BERUS. 0? 



Italy, Spain, the British Isles, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Russia, 

 and even as far northward as Siberia and Norway. A variety 

 has been described, by M. Paulet, which has very recently mul- 

 tiplied to an alarming extent, in the forest of Fontainblcau, where 

 it was known under the name of aspic, or asp. 



The general colour is brown, with a slight tinge of ash-grey or 

 red, but it varies from pale ferruginous-yellow to a deep brown 

 or black. Along the back runs a chain or series of confluent 

 rhomboidal spots, extending in a straight line from the back of the 

 head to the extremity of the tail, and a stripe on each side of dusky 

 roundish or subtriangular spots. The head is broad and bulges 

 out behind, which distinguishes it from the common ringed snake 

 {Coluber natrix, Lin.), and is marked above with a large divided 

 somewhat heart-shaped black mark, or spot. The space between 

 the eyes is covered with two large plates, and on the muzzle are 

 several smaller ones. The opening of the mouth is wide, the 

 tongue forked, soft, flexible, and capable of great extension, the 

 edges of the jaws covered with large scales, barred or variegated 

 with black and light grey, or whitish marks. The dorsal scales are 

 oval, carinatcd, imbricate ; inferior lateral ones subangular and 

 plain. The under surface of the body is ochreous, or dusky 

 tinged with blue. The abdominal scuta vary in number from 142 

 to 148 ; the pairs under the tail from 30 to 40. The usual length 

 of the animal is about two feet, though individuals are sometimes 

 found of much greater length, measuring nearly three feet. The 

 fangs of the viper, like those of most other poisonous serpents, are 

 situated on each side of the anterior part of the upper jaw, and are 

 two in number, with a few very small ones behind, apparently in- 

 tended by nature to supply the place of the former when lost 

 either by age or accident. They are curved, hollow, about a 

 quarter of an inch in length, lying flat in the gum when the mouth 

 is closed, and raised by muscles so as to project and become per- 

 pendicular with the jaw when the animal is about to bite. The 

 apparatus by which the poison is secreted consists of a gland be- 

 hind each orbit, and of a membranous sac at the lateral and anterior 

 part of the upper jaw, seldom containing more than three or four 

 drops of a yellowish liquid, which is conveyed thence by an excre- 



