THE LIVING WORLD. 
203 
ing a liking for the habitations of man. It is also often met with roaming 
through gardens in quest of frogs, mice and insects. Though cowardly in dis¬ 
position, being prompt to retreat from any aggressor, it is also most subtle, 
and will steal upon and bite an unsuspecting person, provided it is near its 
hole. The copperhead hibernates, after the manner of rattlesnakes and Euro¬ 
pean vipers, in communities of various sizes from a dozen to several hundreds, 
though their growing scarcity probably prevents the gathering together of so 
many of the latter number now. In length they never, I believe, or certainly 
very rarely, exceed four feet. 
VIPERS. 
The term adder and viper is used interchangeably between Europe and 
America, the former being American and the 
latter English, but they are both applied to 
the same species. In this country, however, 
there is but a single species, known as the 
cotton-mouth adder , and even this is more 
commonly called the swamp moccasin, though 
we often hear persons, ill-informed, speak of 
spreading adders , and applying the term to 
harmless snakes. The viper , however, is 
common in several parts of the Old World, 
many species being recognized, all of which 
are venomous, though their bite is seldom common viper. 
attended with fatal results. 
The Common Viper ( Pelias veras) is the only poisonous reptile known 
to inhabit England, where it is found in considerable numbers, frequently in 
Scotland, though it is never met with in Ireland. Since the Scotch people 
began the extensive raising of sheep vipers have become much less common, as 
sheep are most destructive to 
creeping reptiles, killingthem, 
as the deer do, with their 
sharp feet. Its haunts are 
in heaths, dry woods, or the 
banks of small streams, where 
it feeds off frogs, shrews and 
birds. The color is somewhat 
variable, at one time appear¬ 
ing of a pale green, and again 
brown, jrellow, brick-red, or 
even black. It is viviparous (from whence the name viper), usually bringing 
forth ten or twelve young at a birth. These are at once extremely active 
as well as pugnacious, and will bite viciously within a few moments after being 
brought into the world. 
It is now a well-established fact that the mother viper gives protection 
to her young by receiving them into her month, and possibly into the gullet, 
dissection of the reptile having shown a receptacle like an elongated sac lying 
along and being an extensible part of the gullet, which can hardly have any 
other use than to provide a retreat for the young. Concerning the breeding 
of these reptiles Goldsmith thus writes: 
