Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/485

 I noticed more than one in pools of water from which they could never escape. So sharply are the fangs bent backward, that the puff-adder does not inflict a wound in the same way as the ordinary species; it has to turn the front part of its body quite back, lower its head, and in this position to fling itself at its victim; this it is capable of doing from a distance of several feet, and I have been a witness of this mode of attack both in Cape Colony and in Natal.

There is another peculiarity about this kind of adder which has been noticed particularly in the western parts of CapeColony [sic]. When any one comes across one of them, his attention is very often attracted to it in the first instance by the singular noise it makes between hissing and spitting; and on looking at the creature more closely, he occasionally finds its body all perforated, and a number of little snakes issuing from the orifices; it has hence been concluded that the brood of the puff-adder thus eats its way into the world. For my own part, I do not concur with this theory, and I would offer an explanation of the phenomenon, in which I am supported by the testimony of an eye-witness. I believe that of all the South African snakes, none more than this is distinguished by devotion to its young; and whenever danger approaches, I think it inflates itself, and in its agitation rushes upon its foe with expanded jaws, and, whether designedly or not I do not say, swallows some portion of its teeming brood. These are prevented by another inflation of the mother’s