A greene forest, or A naturall historie vvherein may bee seene first the most sufferaigne vertues in all the whole kinde of stones & mettals: next of plants, as of herbes, trees, [and] shrubs, lastly of brute beastes, foules, fishes, creeping wormes [and] serpents, and that alphabetically: so that a table shall not neede. Compiled by Iohn Maplet, M. of Arte, and student in Cambridge: entending hereby yt God might especially be glorified: and the people furdered. Anno 1567.

Of the Viper.

THe Viper is a kind of most venimous ser∣pent, so named by the Latin word, for that she bringeth forth & deliuereth hir yong with much paine and griefe. For when as hir belly is big, and hir yong ripened, she desiring to be deliuered, (as they also couet to be out of so straight a p••ace) gnawe and ••ate a way out of their Mothers side, & so with both their great griefe, and most often their Dams destruction, they come out & are borne. I sid. saith that their maner of coniunction is not as others is. But y^e Male being in time of yeare plentifull, & full of séede, to be rid thereof, after their owne and

natural maner, the Male putteth his head into hir mouth, and casteth vp of his seede into hir throte: With the which the Female by excee∣ding great pleasure taken therein, and almost wood or mad therwith, with holding fast, bigh∣••eth of the Males heade, and so it commeth to passe that all the whole kind is in all their do∣ings most sharpely and painefullye agrieued. This kind saith Plinie, liueth in the earths or deepe Crannies, wheras the most part of Ser∣pents liue in rockes of stone, other in the hol∣lownesse of trees. Al winter time it lurcketh & is hyd, but as soone as the Sunbeames warme the yearth, she breaketh out, and being dazeled in the eyes through accustoming in the blacke yearth, she by and by seketh after the herbe Fe∣nell, and anoynteth them and so séeth clearly. This kinde is moste daungerous to aduen∣ture vpon. Politianus saith that Ampicides was killed with the byt of a Viper in Lybia: and with that his so deadly a byt, died oute of hande. Likewise is Orestes reported to haue had the same death, after that he came to him∣selfe againe.