CHAP. 82. (62.)—TERRESTRIAL ANIMALS THAT ARE OVIPAROUS.—
VARIOUS KINDS OF SERPENTS.
Again, among the terrestrial animals, there are the serpents
that are oviparous; of which, as yet, we have not spoken. These
creatures couple by clasping each other, and entwine so closely
around one another, that they might be taken for only one
animal with two heads. The male viper thrusts [Note] its head
into the mouth of the female, which gnaws it in the transports
of its passion. This, too, is the only one among the terrestrial
animals that lays eggs within its body—of one colour, and soft,
like those of fishes. On the third day it hatches its young in
the uterus, and then excludes them, one every day, and generally twenty in number; the last ones become so impatient
of their confinement, that they force a passage through the
sides of their parent, and so kill her. Other serpents, again,
lay eggs attached to one another, and then bury them in the
earth; the young being hatched in the following year. Crocodiles sit on their eggs in turns, first the male, and then the
female. But let us now turn to the generation of the rest of
the terrestrial animals.