worm (anguis fragilis, so called because it snaps in sunder with a
small blow), I have found, on examination, that it is perfectly
innocuous. A neighbouring yeoman (to whom I am indebted for
some good hints) killed and opened a female viper about the
twenty-seventh of May: he found her filled with a chain of eleven
eggs, about the size of those of a blackbird; but none of them were
advanced so far towards a state of maturity as to contain any
rudiments of young. Though they are oviparous, yet they are
viviparous also, hatching their young within their bellies, and then
bringing them forth. Whereas snakes lay chains of eggs every
summer in my melon beds, in spite of all that my people can do to
prevent them; which eggs do not hatch till the spring following, as
I have often experienced. Several intelligent folks assure me that
they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her helpless
young down her throat on sudden surprises, just as the female
opossum does her brood into the pouch under her belly, upon the
like emergencies and yet the London viper-catchers insist on it, to
Mr. Barrington, that no such thing ever happens. The serpent kind
eat, I believe, but once in a year; or rather, but only just at one
season of the year. Country people talk much of a water-snake, but
I am pretty sure, without any reason; for the common snake
(coluber natrix) delights much to sport in the water, perhaps with a
view to procure frogs and other food.

I cannot well guess how you are to make out your twelve species of
reptiles, unless it be by the various species, or rather varieties, of
our lacerti, of which Ray enumerates five. I have not had an
opportunity of ascertaining these; but remember well to have seen,
formerly, several beautiful green lacerti on the sunny sandbanks
near Farnham, in Surrey; and Ray admits there are such in Ireland.