British Reptiles : Snakes — Two Turtles 



from the corrie side, one realizes the profound stillness 

 that pervades the landscape. There is an unbroken 

 mantle of heat over the visible earth, with a weird 

 whistle of a moving Plover in the glen beneath. The 

 heather spreads outward and beyond, and miles of colour 

 carpets the earth. There seems no boundary to the 

 clouds, no limit seems to be mapped out for the earth. 

 Both above and beneath, the aspect is boundless, with the 

 greater world unseen, beyond. A Dragon-Fly dashes 

 across the slope, and the movement of its gaudy wings 

 in the sunlight almost intensifies the sultry heat. 



Out from a withered rootlet glides an Adder, the 

 sun glittering upon its polished scales. The creature 

 raises its head as if it scented the presence of its 

 observer. Then with a swanlike movement it lowers 

 its head, pushes a fern frond aside, and glides towards 

 a bare sandy hillock. Here it coils itself up leisurely 

 in the face of the fierce sun. At a distance it looks like 

 an igneous rock peering from the parched earth. 



The general colouring in Adders is brown or olive, 

 fading into deep brown or black. These ground colours 

 are inclined to alter according to the environs, although 

 the more distinctive markings are always present. Some 

 observers have surmised that there are two species of 

 Adders, because of the diversity in colouring. The 

 scales of the head are small and numerous. Over these 

 scales there is a black patch which takes on a rather 

 curious form that with a little imagination has been 

 likened by some naturalists to a skull and cross-bones. 



b.r. 41 6 



