VIPER AND A FROG.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19946, 13 November 1926, Page 23

VIPER AND A FROG.

SNAKE MEETS ITS DOOM. FROG STICKS IN THROAT. •The Greeks? believed that fate, in the guise of a spirit called Nemesis, pursued mankind and, at the moment of their greatest happiness, struck them down. If there be a Nemesis in the realm of the reptiles and amphibia surely Ripley, in Surrey, is a centre of its activities, says a London paper. There, the other day, a viper met a frog, and a frog to a hungry \ viper means the highest happiness. The viper was a good-sized example of the only poisonous British serpent, 2fiin long, and powerfully muscled. The frog was a giant. The snake struck and grabbed the frog. Thqn its mouth began to work on the frog’s body, a motion which resembles the putting of a glove on a hand. But Nemesis was present with a double-bar-relled message of doom. The frog proved too big for immediate consumption ; it stuck in the adder’s throat. The snake could neither swallow it nor release itself. Its fangs are not adapted to surrender. Pike’s teeth are similar in design, curved so that they can pull in but not let forth. And that is the way of a snake’s teeth.

Writhing and struggling violently, the unfortunate viper attracted the attention of a naturalist, the sort of man who would appear on the scene with appropriate comment if the event occurred in one of the fables of Aesop. “This,” thought he, “is the season when our enemies, the adders, produce their young, the season above all others when they should be killed.” So he dealt a blow with his stick which settled the fate of the viper.

Vipers are among the snakes which do not lay eggs, but retain them in the body till the eggs hatch and the young snakes themselves enter the world. And Ms viper, which ha contemplated a mighty meal of frog, proved to contain 16 little live vipers! There it is remarked, is the explanation, undoubtedly, of th r age-old question which has agitated naturalists: “Do mother adders swallow their young to protect them?” They do not; the young adders which are found in the bodies of adult vipers are the infants which have hatched from the eggs inside the parent’s body and have not yet appeared in the outer‘world. Nemesis in the reptile world struck the fatal blow at this viper; which could neither swallow its prey nor escape with it. Had there been time it cannot be doubted that the reptile would have got the better of its mouthful. There is hardly a limit, in reason, to the swallowing capacity of snakes, if they are given time. It was only two years ago that a six-foot python at the Manchester Zoo was swallowed by another, slightly smaller. Whereas the viper and the python cannot desist once they have gripped a victim, but must eat straight forward, the feat can ultimately be managed by some of the order, when the victim is not too large. There was once a jolly little grass snake, one of the innocent tribe, excellent friends, snappers-up of small types of life which are apt to grow to excessive numbers. This snake was taken up by a naturalist who was quick to recognise a friend, and had with him a collector’s bag. But the naturalist must have been a hapless bachelor, for the bag he carried had a hole in it. The hole did not seem to matter here, however, for, thought the naturalist, the snake was far too portly to escape by such an avenue; it had just dined, and seemed secure enough. When the man reached home, however, the snake was missing from the bag, but in its place lay a plump fat toad, gravely blinking at him. The snake had swallowed the toad, found itself too fat to escape through the hole with it, and had cast it out of its mouth to make good its escape.