A history of British reptiles / By Thomas Bell.

  • Thomas Bell
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of British reptiles / By Thomas Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    102/196 page 72
    The specimen which I here figure, and from which I give the following description, was taken in the neighbour- hood of Fordingbridge, in Hampshire, and was kindly forwarded to me by Dr. Thackeray, Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, by whom I am informed that, of great numbers of Vipers which are annually destroyed in that neighbourhood, about one in ten are of the present variety. The ground-colour is a dull brick-red, with the usual markings of the Common Viper, of a ferruginous brown, or mahogany colour. The marks on the head are very simi- lar in form; but the V mark is somewhat more divergent than is usual in the common variety. The throat is white, tinged with ferruginous red, and the belly is ferruginous grey, with minute whitish dots, and a few larger dots of reddish brown. The round spots on each side of the back are rather more distinct, and somewhat smaller than in the common sort; there are also a few irregular reddish white spots along the sides of the neck; the upper lip is white, barred with brown. The only striking peculiarity in its form is the greater proportionate breadth of the head behind the eyes, which in this specimen is equal to the length of the gape. The plates of the abdomen are one hundred and fifty; those of the tail thirty-three pairs. The following are the dimensions of the specimen here figured :— In. Lines. Total length . . . . .10 0 Length of the tail . . . . 11 Length of the head . . . .05 Breadth of the head . . . . 0 4 A specimen has been particularly described by Mr. Strickland, in the sixth volume of Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History, in the following words: — “Of a bright
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