226 BRITISH SERPENTS. 



till 1 get a spider, miss, and if I can get it to crawl 

 over the adder, it [i.e., the adder] will get so angry 

 that it will burst to bits directly.' However, the 

 spider was obstinate, and refused to perform. The 

 idea, it seems, is quite general in some of the dis- 

 tricts about here." — Frank Davies, Newcastle Emlyn, 

 South Wales. 



Pigs eating adders. — It is said that the farmers 

 near Clun Forest, Shropshire, when the adders became 

 too numerous to be pleasant, used to turn out their 

 pigs, which made short work of the adders by feed- 

 ing on them. I have not been able to authenticate 

 this from eyewitnesses, though I have been told that 

 the farmers did adopt this curious plan. 



The idea is by no means novel, for Darwin in his 

 1 Expressions of the Emotions ' states that " it is well 

 known that pigs are employed in the United States 

 to clear districts infested with rattlesnakes, which 

 they do most effectually." Dr E. Brown also 

 stated in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society 

 (1871) that pigs will always make a rush for snakes 

 whenever they see them, and that snakes would 

 always make every effort to get away from the 

 locality of a pig. 



I know myself of an instance where Tarn worth pigs 

 were imported into a district in South Africa with the 

 idea of ridding a certain spot of the numerous snakes 

 which infested it, and I understand that not only was 



