cap. 38,
where he maketh mention of a she adder which he saw in Sala, whose
womb (as he saith) was eaten out after a like fashion, her young ones
lying by her in the sunshine, as if they had been earthworms.
Nevertheless, as he nameth them _viperas_, so he calleth the male
_echis_. and the female _echidna_, concluding in the end that _echis_
is the same serpent which his countrymen to this day call _ein atter_,
as I have also noted before out of a Saxon dictionary. For my part I
am persuaded that the slaughter of their parents is either not true at
all, or not always (although I doubt not but that nature hath right
well provided to inhibit their superfluous increase by some means or
other), and so much the rather am I led hereunto for that I gather by
Nicander that of all venomous worms the viper only bringeth out her
young alive, and therefore is called in Latin _vipera quasivivipara_,
but of her own death he doth not (to my remembrance) say anything. It
is testified also by other in other words, and to the like sense, that
"_Echis id est vipera sola ex serpentibus non ova sed animalia
parit_."[4] And it may well be, for I remember that I have read in
Philostratus, _De vita Appollonii_, how he saw a viper licking her
young. I did see an adder once myself that lay (as I thought) sleeping
on a molehill, out of whose mouth came eleven young adders of twelve
or thirteen inches in length apiece, which played to and fro in the
grass one with another, till some of them espied me. So soon therefore
as they saw my face they ran again into the mouth of their dam, whom I
killed, and then found each of them shrouded in a distinct cell or
pannicle in her belly, much like unto a soft white jelly, which maketh
me to be of the opinion that our adder is the viper indeed. The colour
of their skin is for the most part like rusty iron or iron grey, but
such as be very old resemble a ruddy blue; and as once in the year (to
wit, in April or about the beginning of May) they cast their old skins
(whereby as it is thought their age reneweth), so their stinging
bringeth death without present remedy be at hand, the wounded never
ceasing to swell, neither the venom to work till the skin of the one
break, and the other ascend upward to the heart, where it finisheth
the natural effect, except the juice of dragons (in Latin called
_dracunculus minor_) be speedily ministered and drunk in strong ale,
or else some other medicine taken of like force that