142 BRITISH SERPENTS. 



this country, and rather difficult to be attained : Two 

 or three ounces of the powder of dried adders and 

 two ounces of adder's oil, mixed in a pint of canary, 

 and repeated several times. As soon as the malignity 

 and venom are destroyed, treat the sores as wounds or 

 ulcers." 



Which Mr Osbaldistone considered the most expen- 

 sive, and the harder to get, — the adder's oil, or the 

 pint of canary, — is not stated. Perhaps the latter was 

 dear, the former not easily to be had. In another 

 part of this interesting old book he writes : — 



" Snakes and Adders. — To drive them from the 

 garden, plant wormwood in various parts of it, and 

 they will not come near it. Or smoke the place with 

 hartshorn, or lily roots burnt in a fire-pan, and they 

 will fly from the place. Or old shoes burnt, or other 

 stinking stuff, will drive them away ; or ash - tree 

 boughs, while green leaves are on them, laid about 

 your ground will have the same effect. Or, take a 

 handful of onions and ten river crabfish, beat them 

 well together, and lay it in the place where they come, 

 and you may kill many of them together." 



Of these remedies, it can quite be believed that the 

 burning of old shoes would be very effective in driving 

 away the most intrusive adder ; but, unfortunately, no 

 respectable person would care to be in that spot either 

 as long as the fumes were at all potent, and when that 

 effect had worn off the adders might return too. 



