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Fig. 21.—(1) Vipera berus; (2) Vipera aspis; (3, 4) Vipera ammodytes. (Natural size.)

Colour very variable, grey, yellowish, olive, brown, or red above, generally with an undulating or zigzag band along the vertebral column, and a series of lateral spots. A black spot shaped like a V, an X, or a circumflex accent, on the head. The tip of the tail is yellow or reddish. Some specimens are entirely black.

Total length from 350 to 700 millimetres; tail 75 to 90.

Habitat: Northern Europe, and especially the mountains of Central Europe; irregularly distributed in Southern Europe; Northern Spain and Portugal, Northern Italy, Bosnia, Caucasus.

This viper, which is very common in France, ranges as far as the Scandinavian Peninsula to about the 65th parallel of North Latitude. It is sometimes met with among the mountains at an altitude of about 6,500 feet (2,000 metres). It is found on heaths, in grass-lands, vineyards, and forests. Certain parts of the sandy moors of North Germany are literally infested with it. It abounds in the Jura, Isère, Ardèche, Auvergne, Brittany, Vendée, and the Forest of Fontainebleau.

It seeks its prey by night, and feeds on voles, small birds, frogs, lizards, and small fish. During the summer it shows a preference for moist places, often even remaining in the water, in which it swims with ease.

Light and fire attract it. It does not climb trees, but is frequently found coiled up on boughs of dead wood scattered on the ground.

When on the defensive, and preparing to bite, it throws its head back, and makes a sudden dart of from a foot to sixteen inches. If irritated it makes a sort of hissing noise.

To pass the winter it retires into the crevices of rocks or into old tree-trunks, where it entwines itself closely with a number of its congeners. In this way ten or fifteen vipers are frequently found together in the same hole.

In April, the whole company awakes, and copulation then takes place. The eggs are laid in August and September, and the young immediately crawl out of the shell, already prepared to bite, and capable of finding their own food. Their length at birth amounts to 230 millimetres.

The two glands of an adult adder contain about 10 centigrammes of poison. This small quantity is sometimes sufficient to cause death; out of 610 persons bitten, Rollinger returns 59 deaths, or about 10 per cent.

In the departments of Vendée and Loire-Inférieure alone, Viaud Grand Marais has noted during a period of six years 321 cases of bites from adders, 62 of which were followed by death. In Auvergne, Dr. Fredet2 (of Royat) returns 14 cases, which caused 6 deaths.