208 
THE LIVING WORLD. 
The Asp (Vipera aspis ) is found nearly everywhere throughout Europe,, 
but is most plentiful in Sweden, and the whole of Scandinavia. Its length is 
not greater than that of the cerastes, but its bite is more dangerous, and not 
a few persons fall victims to its venom every year. However, the venom of this 
creature is not greatly to be dreaded except during the warm season, when, for 
reasons not clearly understood, the poison distilled by all serpents is most 
dangerous. But it is more noticeably so in the asp , and its fierceness is also 
much increased by thunder-storms, swift-flying clouds, or severe electrical dis¬ 
turbances. 
The color of the creature is olive-brown, decorated with four rows of black 
spots, but sometimes the markings are different, showing a double chain of 
coalescing black spots running along the spine, very much like those on the 
common viper. 
HARMLESS SNAKES. 
Having treated a number of the most noted, oecause most dangerous, ser¬ 
pents of the Old World and the New, we will return to a consideration of a 
few of the species inhabiting North America that are considerable in size, often 
met with, but fortunately harmless, except to eggs, poultry and the small prey 
upon which they subsist. 
The Spreading Adder (.Heterodon platyrhynchus ) is found in nearly all 
parts of the Middle and Eastern States, where it grows to a length of five feet. 
Its appearance is forbidding, which is very much increased by a habit it has, 
upon being irritated, of spreading its head and body and opening its jaws in 
a most defiant way. I remember when a boy, while hunting squirrels in the 
woods about my home, I discovered twq of these snakes which, without danger, 
I captured, and, holding them by the tail, carried the reptiles into town and to 
a physician who was offering a reward of several marbles for each live snake 
brought to him. When I entered a drug store where the doctor was loafing 
every one beat a precipitate retreat, believing that the snakes I carried were of 
the most venomous character, an opinion which is yet generally shared, not¬ 
withstanding its fallacy. 
The Glass Snake is also a harmless creature, about which many stories 
are told that belong to works of fiction rather than to a Natural History, ex¬ 
cept to expose their falsity. That such a creature does exist, capable of de¬ 
taching its tail at will, like the slow, or blind worm of England, is perhaps 
well established, but this curious power has given rise to such fables as repre¬ 
sent the snake being able to reunite the parts thus divested. Whatever evi¬ 
dence may be adduced, it is safe to deny the possibility of the reunion of the 
joints, since such a power would be in opposition to all laws of nature. The 
glass snake, which is of a variable color, changing with each season, is a ground 
creature, about two feet in length, incapable of climbing and slow in all its 
movements. As a means for its protection, therefore, it is endowed with the 
power to snap off its tail, which comprises nearly two-thirds its entire length, 
and leaves this portion to the mercy of its enemy while the body seeks escape 
in the ground or brush. The belief that the joints reunite is no doubt due to 
the fact that the parts thus thrown off are very soon reproduced by natural 
growth, just as in the lobster and other crustaceans the legs or claws, when 
lost, are speedily renewed. 
