y so many credible
eye-witnesses, that I cannot hesitate in yielding implicit credence to
the fact. One man particularly, on whose word I fully rely, tells me
that he has himself seen as many as thirteen young vipers thus enter the
mouth of the parent, which he afterwards killed and opened for the
purpose of counting them."[144]

Mr E. Percival, writing to the _Zoologist_, under date "64
Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, Oct. 17, 1848," narrates the following
facts:--"When in Scotland, last autumn, I saw what at the time satisfied
me that vipers really possessed this faculty, though the evidence was
scarcely as conclusive as might have been wished. Walking along a sunny
road, I saw a viper lying on the parapet. She had apparently just been
killed by a blow from a stick. Five or six young ones, about four inches
long, were wriggling about their murdered parent, and one was making its
way out of her mouth, at the time when I approached. Whether this was
the first time the young ones had seen the light, or whether they were
only leaving a place of temporary refuge, I leave to more experienced
observers than myself to determine."[145]

This communication brought out the following from the late Mr John
Wolley:--"Mr Percival's interesting note (_Zool._, 2305) on this subject
reminds me of a very similar anecdote, told me several years ago by a
gentleman who is an accurate observer, and who has had long experience
in all kinds of sports. He one day shot a viper, and almost immediately
afterwards it was surrounded by young ones, in what appeared to him the
most mysterious manner. But here the grand link was wanting which Mr
Percival has supplied,--the young ones were not seen to come out of
their mother's mouth. I may be allowed to mention an anecdote, told me
in 1842, by an illiterate shepherd of Hougham, near Dover: he met me
catching vipers, and, on my entering into conversation with him, he
volunteered--without any allusion of mine--to tell this curious story.
One day his father came suddenly upon a viper surrounded by her young,
she opened her mouth and they all ran down her throat; he killed her,
and leaving her on the ground, propped her mouth open between two pieces
of stick; presently the young ones crawled out: on the slightest alarm
they retreated back again,--and this they did repeatedly for several
days, during which time many people came to see it.[146] The young which
White of Selborne cut out of the old female, and which i