I agree with merlyn...I tried your code and it died without any explanation at the send() command, but then I wrote the following (almost an exact copy of the POD code for Net::Ping) and got a response:

C:\Temp>perl -MNet::Ping -e "$p = Net::Ping->new(); print qq|host is a
+live.\n| if $p->ping('127.0.0.1');"
perl -MNet::Ping -e "$p = Net::Ping->new(); print qq|host is alive.\n|
+ if $p->ping('127.0.0.1');"
host is alive.
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