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Snout slightly turned up, soft and squarely truncate; vertical diameter of the eyes equal to the space separating them from the mouth; upper surface of the head usually covered with small, imbricate, smooth or feebly keeled scales, in 4–7 series, between the supraocular shields, which are prominent. The frontal and parietal shields are usually wanting; sometimes they are distinct, but small and irregular; the former are separated from the supraoculars by two series of scales; 8–13 scales round the eyes; two (rarely three) series of scales between the eyes and the labials; nasal shield single, separated from the rostral by a naso-rostral shield. Body scales in 21–23 rows, strongly keeled; 134–158 ventrals; 32–49 subcaudals.

Coloration very variable, grey, yellowish, brown, or red above, with a zigzag band as in V. berus. Usually a black U-shaped mark on the hinder part of the head, with a longitudinal black streak behind the eyes; upper lip white, or yellowish. Ventral surface yellow, white, grey, or black, with lighter or darker markings.

Total length, 620–675 millimetres; tail 75–95.

Habitat: France (especially Vendée, the Forest of Fontainebleau, and the South), Pyrenees, Alsace-Lorraine, the Black Forest, Switzerland, Italy and Sicily, and the Tyrol.

This viper especially frequents dry, rocky, and arid hillsides, which are exposed to the sun. Like the adder, it hibernates in tree-trunks and old walls. It lays from 6 to 15 eggs, from which the living young immediately issue, provided with poison. It feeds upon small rodents, worms, insects, and young birds. Raptorial birds, storks, and hedgehogs pursue it and devour it in large numbers.

Fig. 22.—Vipera aspis. (Natural size.) (From the Forest of Fontainebleau.)