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four or five feet long. They appeared to me to 

 be the same species, as those I described in the 

 Rio Magdalena. It is a beautiful animal, but 

 extremely venomous, white below the belly, and 

 spotted with brown and red on the back. As 

 the inside of the hut was filled with grass, and 

 as we lay upon the ground, there being no 

 means of suspending our hammocks, we were 

 not without inquietude during the night. In 

 the morning a large viper was found on lifting 

 up from the ground the jaguar skin, upon which 

 one of our domestics had slept. The Indians 

 say, that these reptiles, slow in their movements 

 when they are not pursued, creep near a man 

 because they are fond of heat. In fact, on the 

 banks of the Magdalena a serpent entered the 

 bed of one of our fellow-travellers, where he 

 remained a part of the night, without doing 

 him any harm. Without wishing here to 

 take up the defence of vipers and rattlesnakes, 

 I believe it may be affirmed, that, if these ve- 

 nomous animals had such a disposition for 

 offence as is supposed, the human species would 

 certainly not have resisted their numbers in 

 some parts of America ; for instance on the 



thirty-eight caudal scales (double) . The coluber mapanare 

 of the Rio Magdalena has two hundred and eight ventral 

 plates, and sixty-four double candal scales, See the second 

 vol. of my Observations de Zoologie. 



