THE VIPER. 
57 
mouth and admit her helpless young down her throat on sudden 
surprises, just as the female opossum does her brood into the 
pouch under her belly, upon the like emergencies ; and yet the 
London viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr. Barrington, that no 
such thing ever happens.* The serpent kind eat, I believe, but 
once in a year ; or, rather, but only just at one season of the 
year. Country people talk much of a water-snake, but, I am 
pretty sure, without any reason; for the common snake (coluber 
natrixj delights much to sport in the water, perhaps with a view 
to procure frogs and other food.f 
I cannot well guess how you are to make out your twelve 
species of reptiles, unless it be by the various species, or rather 
varieties, of our lacerti, of which Ray enumerates five.J I have 
not had opportunity of ascertaining these ; but remember well to 
binds them, just as they happen to have fallen, in irregular, agglutinate masses, so that they are 
not easily torn asunder. When newly laid, they quickly shrivel up if exposed to the air, till in a 
few hours they appear not more than half full ; but, if placed in a moist situation, very speedily 
again dilate, and hatch without having experienced injury. It is hardly necessary to add that, 
the eggs of all reptiles are composed of gelaliii (isinglass), and not of albumen, as are those of 
birds The scaly covering of this animal is, however, composed chiefly of coagulate albumen' — 
Ed. 
* This is perfectly correct, however; I know eye-witnesses of the fact, one of whom, on whose 
word I can place strict reliance, tells me that he has himself seen as many as thirteen young 
vipers thus enter the mouth of their parent, which latter be afterwards killed, and opened, for the 
purpose of counting them. — En. 
t There are few observers but must have often noticed this. All the true serpentidat I believe, 
readily take the water ; the boa constrictor has been met with out at sea, as has abo our common 
ringed-snake, on more than one occasion. There is an instance recorded of a viper having seized 
the artificial fly of an individual fishing in one of the Scottish lakes, on the verge of the estuary 
of a river. It was finally drowned by dragging it into the current against the stream. 1 am not 
aware, however, that any of the anguidcB (the group to which our common brittling or " slow- 
worm" belongs), enter the water. — Ed. 
t The different British members of the sub-class amphibia have already been mentioned ; viz., 
two species of frog {rana), one of which is, however, much in need of further investigation ; two 
of toad (6m/o), and perhaps a third; and three of newt (^^i^on) , more than which probably remains 
to be discovered : all these pertain to the first order, caducibranchia- 
Of the sub-class reptilian order testudinata, two species are occasionally met with in our seas ; the 
leathern spharge {sphargis coriacea) , a native of the Mediterranean, of very large size, British- 
caught specimens having been adjudged to weigh SOOlbs , and measuring six feet nine inches in 
length, the species being described to attain a length of eight feet ; and the imbricate turtle 
{chelonia imbricata), a native of the American seas, and of very rare occurrence in those of Europe, 
measuring generally (according to Shaw's Zoology) about three, sometimes five feet in length. 
Of the second order, sauria, we have but two satisfactorily ascertained species ; the common 
heath-lizard {lacerta agilis), everywhere abundant upon moors and sunny banks, and sometimes 
woods, rarely exceeding six inches in length, of a bluish colour when the cuticle is newly cast, 
becoming gradually more brown till it is shed again, marked down the back with a black list, 
and with corresponding streaks of black along the sides, accompanied with other rows of spots 
more or less regular, and the male of which is orange underneath, in this presenting a curious 
resemblance to some of the newts; and the sand lizard (£. stirpium), a larger and every way 
more bulky species, which (though common in France) has only recently been two or three times 
met with in this country, probably from the gross neglect with which the present sub-class of 
