mmediately
threw themselves into attitudes of defiance, had probably not then seen
the daylight for the first time. Mr Bell, in a note in Bennett's edition
of White's 'Selborne,' mentions the wide-spread belief in this alleged
habit of the viper; but appears to consider the fact not proved.
Accounts of similar habits in foreign viviparous snakes, common report,
and, above all, Mr Percival's observation, leave no doubt on my mind
about the matter."

The most recent case on record that I have met with, is the following,
communicated to the _Zoologist_[147] for last December, by the Rev.
Henry Bond, of South Petherton:--

"Walking in an orchard near Tyneham House, in Dorsetshire, I came upon
an old adder basking in the sun, with her young around her; she was
lying on some grass that had been long cut, and had become smooth and
bleached by exposure to the weather. Alarmed by my approach, I
distinctly saw the young ones run down their mother's throat. At that
time I had never heard of the controversy respecting the fact, otherwise
I should have been more anxious to have killed the adder, to prove the
case. As it was, she escaped while I was more interested in the
circumstance I witnessed than in her destruction."

Exactly the same thing is told of the North American Rattlesnake. Hunter
says, that when alarmed, the young ones, which are eight or ten in
number, retreat into the mouth of the parent, and reappear on its
giving a contractile muscular token that the danger is past.[148]

M. Palisot de Beauvois asserts that he saw a large rattlesnake which he
had disturbed in his walks immediately coil itself up and open its jaws,
when in an instant five small ones that were lying by it rushed into its
open mouth. He concealed himself, and watched the snake, and in a
quarter of an hour saw her discharge them. He then approached a second
time, when the young ones rushed into the parent's mouth more quickly
than before, and the animal immediately moved off, and escaped. The
phenomenon is said to have been observed in regard to some of the
venomous snakes of India, but I cannot now refer to details.

Confirmation of a reported fact is sometimes derived from collateral
evidence, and such is not wanting in the present case. The phenomenon is
not confined to serpents; it has been observed in their near relatives,
the lizards. Mr Edward Newman, while guarding the subject with a
philosophical caveat, furnishes his readers with the fol