Soon after this event she discarded her way-worn and bedraggled garment, and shone resplendent in gorgeous colouring, as presented to the reader in the coloured illustration.
Her portrait was not taken until some weeks afterwards, when the horns were therefore a little dry and shrivelled again. With the new dress they presented a well-defined and perfect curve, tapering to a point, and without any break in their outline. By degrees they became curled in the manner here represented. Her colours were of a rich prismatic hue on the sides, where the brilliant tints are so blended that to paint them is impossible. Only on the back and in the darker markings can the pattern be fairly represented. Her children all resembled her in their rich tints, and were so handsome that one almost forgot their evil propensities.
Forty of them died within a week. I begged hard for one of the deceased. The keeper of course had no power in his hands. All were wanted for scientific experimentalists. Alas, I was no scientist, but only a woman! The following Sunday, when I was at the Gardens, the forty-first baby viper had just died. The Superintendent ‘happened along,’ and was greeted with another appeal from me. He would ‘consider of it’ and let me know ‘to-morrow.’ ‘Oh, why not now?’ pleaded the reader’s devoted servant. ‘You can’t want forty-one little dead vipers!’
Suddenly to the rescue appeared on the scene no less a personage than Dr. Günther, and to him I urged my request. ‘Well,’ said he in response to my eagerness, ‘one of Our Council is here, and’—Yes, the F.Z.S. referred to had, with the Superintendent, just passed the iron barrier to view the interesting little survivors, and Dr. Günther followed, while I discreetly remained outside. My suspense was not of long duration, for soon reappeared the amiable Superintendent daintily carrying a little paper bag which might have contained bon-bons. ‘Fortunately,’ said he, ‘two of Our Council happen to be here, and so,’ etc., and I became the happy possessor of the scarcely cold viperling, here faithfully represented by the side of its mother. Exultantly I carried it off to a sequestered spot,—thinking chiefly of you, dear readers,—and examined its ‘horns,’ which wore the appearance of an ornamental top-knot rather than horns. They were like a bow, or two little ears, or half-unfolded leaves. Its colouring was gorgeous, but the pattern is too fine and complicated to represent on so small a scale. The black triangular mark on the head of both mother and child was like velvet in its density. Nor was this appearance lessened under the lens; for quickly I ran off with my treasure, and spent a delightful ‘evening at home’ in studying its ‘points,’ not even excepting those of tongue and fangs. The former is represented on p. 120, and the latter on p. 360. The other results of my investigations come under their separate heads in this book.
Another of the horned serpents, Vipera cornuta, has a cluster of leaf-like scales in three distinct pairs decorating its nose. These in the individual at the Zoological Gardens were particularly ear-like, and there was a remarkable peculiarity about them which was not found in either of the other horned specimens when dead. It was, that when one horn was moved divergently with the finger, its fellow moved without being touched to correspond, and when let go both sprang back to their original position. I at first was merely feeling and examining them when this singularly sympathetic movement arrested my attention. Then I tried it with each of the six scales or ‘horns’ several times, and always with the same result. Whichever one of them was held back, the opposite one diverged at a corresponding angle.
| 1. Natural position. | 2. Three held back to their utmost. | 3. Three held back partly. |
Their natural position is nearly erect, and when one horn—say the longest to the right in Fig. 1—was pressed or pulled outwards, we might suppose that in a dead specimen it would drag its fellow that way also, should any movement at all take place; instead of which, it flew off in the opposite direction, like two negative or two positive poles repelling each other. If I pressed the three to the right as much as in the centre figure, the other three receded similarly to the left. Each pair acted in concert in this remarkable manner, or each two pairs, or all three pairs.