glistening eyes, or maybe watching for some unwary mouse or rat, upon which it darts like an arrow, inflicting with its poisonous fang the fatal

wound.

The viper now seizes its prey by its head, and though the victim may be twice the size of the

THE VIPER.

head of the

destroyer, yet the viper gradually swallows it. During the process of swallowing, which lasts about an hour, it lies at full length on the ground and scarcely stirs.

Unless provoked, it never attacks man; and its bite, although dangerous, is seldom fatal.

A gentleman, writing of the viper, says: "I

once killed an adder in a hilly wood in Surrey. While beating among the bushes, my little dog started and yelled; this drew my attention, and I found him running from a snake which appeared about two feet long. I contrived to strike the reptile on the head with my stick, which stunned it, and I then found five young ones lying by its side. No doubt the dog had intruded on the little family, which enraged the mother and provoked the bite.

“On looking a little more closely at the animal and its young, I noticed they were shorter and larger round in proportion than any snakes I had before seen; the head was also small, and destitute of the broad plates common to the harmless ringed snake. I therefore concluded I had met with an adder and family.

"On searching the dog for evidence of the sting, I found a swollen red spot looking like a common boil. Arriving at the nearest village, I injected a little hartshorn into the wound, and the dog seemed little the worse for the bite."

Vipers seem to be entirely destitute of natural affection. Soon after birth the little ones leave the parent and go off about their own business, conscious of the power which their poisonous fangs give them.

There are not less than two hundred and forty species of harmless snakes. Of these we have a good example in the common ringed snake.

This snake, unlike the viper, inhabits low moist

woods, damp meadows, and hedge-rows in the vicinity of water. It also swims with facility. Its favourite food consists of frogs, but it occasionally feeds on mice and nestling birds. It swallows its

prey whole, and whilst yet alive.

These snakes pass the winter-time in a torpid

LEARN:

Harts'-horn, a medicine formerly made from the horn of the hart or male deer. Nest'-ling birds, young birds which have not yet left their nest.

U-ni-ver'-sal-ly, generally.
Ven'-o-mous, poisonous.
Lurk'-ing-place, hiding-place.
In-ject'-ed, thrown in.
Vi-cin'-i-ty, neighbourhood.

A LEAN, hungry, half-starved Wolf happened, one moonshiny night, to meet with a jolly, plump, well-fed Mastiff; and, after the first compliments were passed, said the Wolf, "You look extremely well, I protest: I think I never saw a more graceful, comely person. But how comes it about, I beseech you, that you should live so much better than I? I may say, without vanity, that I venture fifty times more than you do, and yet I am almost ready to perish with hunger."

The Dog answered very bluntly, "Why, you may live as well, if you will do the same for it that I do."

"Indeed what is that?"

says he. "Why," says the Dog, "only to guard the house a-nights, and keep it from thieves."

"With all my heart," replies the Wolf, "for at present I have but a sorry time of it; and, I think, to change my hard lodging in the woods, where I endure rain, frost, and snow, for a warm roof over my head and plenty of good victuals, will be no bad bargain."

"True," says the Dog; "therefore you have nothing more to do but to follow me."

Now, as they were jogging on together, the Wolf spied a crease in the Dog's neck, and, having a strange curiosity, could not forbear asking him. what it meant.

"Pooh! nothing," says the Dog.

"Nay, but pray," says the Wolf.

"Why," says the Dog, "if you must know, I am tied up in the day-time, because I am a little fierce, for fear I should bite people, and am only let loose a-nights.

"But this is done with design to make me sleep a-days more than anything else, and that I may watch the better in the night-time; for as soon as ever the twilight appears, out I am turned, and may go where I please.

"Then my master brings me plates of bones from the table with his own hands, and whatever scraps are left by any of the family all fall to my share; for you must know I am a favourite with everybody.