64 BRITISH SERPENTS. 



which bears on the point of their hibernating in 

 clusters : " A farmer I knew well told me that some 

 woodmen in Eeinden Wood, Swingfield (Kent), were 

 in mid-winter excavating under the edge of a gravel 

 pit (I believe to dig out a rabbit), when they came 

 upon an enormous mass of adders in a semi-dormant 

 state. He said there were hundreds coiled up to- 

 gether ! At the time I did not think much of it, and 

 expressed my incredulity, but he assured me that 

 it was so. That they do at times congregate in con- 

 siderable numbers I quite believe. When I was a 

 boy I used to spend a few days sometimes at a farm 

 where there was a sloping bank. This had at one 

 time been a cottage garden, but the cottage having 

 been converted into a ' hopoust,' the garden was 

 allowed to drop into an overgrown waste of brambles 

 and long grass, tenanted by rabbits and adders. On 

 one occasion the farm - servants decided to devote 

 the Sunday afternoon to an adder-hunt in this spot. 

 Each one, armed with a stout stick, set to work, when 

 the adders quickly swarmed round them in such 

 numbers that they completely drove the men off the 

 field. They struck about in all directions for a minute 

 or two, and then fairly had to make a bolt for it, 

 and not one of them could be prevailed upon to enter 

 the enclosure again, although they were a dare-devil 

 lot." Even supposing that the farmer exaggerated the 

 numbers a little, there is no doubt that the men did 

 come across a very large congregation of adders hiber- 



