112 PARENTAL CARE OF THE VIPER. 
lie should do more damage, and then settled down to watch the progress of the poison within 
my system 
“It was not slow to take effect ; first the wound looked and felt like a nettle sting, then 
like a wasp sting, and in the course of a few minutes the whole joint was swollen, with much 
pain. At this juncture my father, a medical man, arrived from a country journey, and set the 
approved antidotes to work, ammonia, oil and lunar caustic, to the wound, having previously 
made incisions about the punctured spot, and with paternal affection attempted to draw out 
the poison by suction ; but nothing availed, and all sorts of horrid symptoms set in, fainting, 
sickness, delirium, and fever ; the hand and whole arm to the shoulder greatly swollen and 
discolored, with most intense pain. This state of things lasted for several days. I forget the 
exact time, but I was not fully restored for more than a fortnight after the bite. 
“ Since that day I have taken care to put my acquaintance with Serpents on such a footing 
as to be able at a glance to tell the species of any of the common Snakes ; a piece of useful 
knowledge most easily gained, and well worth the acquirement.” 
It was a most providential circumstance that the reptile did not bite him immediately 
after its capture, and that the wound was inflicted on the finger and not on the neck, as in the 
one case he could hardly have reached his home, and in the other, the great swelling might 
have caused suffocation, as is known to be the case with persons bitten in the neck by other 
poisonous Serpents. 
A few words will not be out of place respecting the alleged capability of the Viper of 
receiving its progeny into its mouth when in danger. 
A long-standing controversy on this subject has elicited a vast amount of correspondence, 
the whole of which seems to resolve itself into two divisions, namely, communications from a 
great number of persons who assert that they have seen the young Vipers crawl into their 
parent’s open mouth, and letters from two or three persons who say that they did not do 
so, because such a proceeding is impossible, and contrary to the laws of nature. 
One of the most learned of the objectors remarks, that no amount of testimony can prevail 
against reason, and that the persons who assert that they have seen the young Vipers crawl 
into their mother’s mouth, have fallen into the dangerous fallacy of believing what they saw. 
Now this argument, novel though it may be to the scientific world in general, is perfectly 
familiar to theologians as being the sheet-anchor of a certain school of controversialists, who 
deny the credibility of the miraculous events narrated in the Scriptures. It has been repeat- 
edly exploded in polemical controversy, and long abandoned by impartial thinkers, inasmuch 
as it assumes a knowledge of all the laws of nature, and contracts the power of the Divine 
Creator of the Universe within the narrow limits of the individual idiosyncracy and mental 
capacities of the disputant. 
It has ever been conceded that, in all ages, the testimony of credible witnesses has been 
the surest mode of confuting false reasoning and thereby eliciting truth ; so that when any 
unprejudiced reasoner finds that a favorite theory is contradicted by the testimony of even one 
trustworthy observer, much more when the united accounts of many competent judges all tend 
to the same point, he feels that it is time for him to reflect whether, however perfect may be 
the form of his syllogism, there may not be something wrong with his premises. Reasoning is 
more liable to falsity than the senses to deception. It is easy enough to talk of a flagrant viola- 
tion of the laws of nature, but before we venture to do so it is as well to be quite certain that 
we are sure of the full extent of those laws. Who is there, even among the most learned, that 
can define the full working of even a single known law and its ever-varying action under differ- 
ent circumstances ? And who can venture to say that some hitherto unrecognized law may not 
be in existence, which, if known and acknowledged, would account for the circumstances 
which at present seem so unaccountable ? 
In the second place, if we are not to depend upon the testimony of our acknowledged 
senses, on what are we to depend for the whole of natural philosophy, astronomy, or, indeed, 
any other established science ? It is simply on the testimony of our senses that all existing 
