Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
Of any true decision.”
Again, in Sonnet CXII., “the adder’s sense” is referred to in such a way as to leave no doubt of the poet’s impression that adders do not hear.
“Caliban. Sometime am I
All wound with adders, who, with cloven tongues
Do hiss me into madness.”
Tempest, Act ii. Sc. 2.
The “eyeless venom’d worm” referred to in Timon of Athens, Act iv. Sc. 3, is of course the Slow-worm (Anguis fragilis).
The observant naturalist must doubtless have remarked the partiality evinced by snakes and other reptiles for basking in the sun. Shakespeare has noticed that—
“The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun.”