98 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



to rest where grasses and herbage, mixed perhaps with 

 the feathery foliage of the lower branches of a bush, 

 shot through and sprinkled and spotted with shifting 

 sunlight and shadow, make up a broken picture, 

 the numberless minute details of which you cannot 

 see separately. If, on such a variegated ground, you 

 are able to detect and closely regard without alarming 

 him, you will be rewarded with a very beautiful sight. 

 You will see that his ground colour, whatever the pre- 

 cise tint may be, from pale yellow or palest brown, to 

 a copper or terra-cotta red, assimilates to the colour 

 of the soil, and to the stems and leaves of ripe 

 grasses; and that the sand in the earth, the seeding 

 grasses, and scaly coil, sparkle alike at each point 

 where a sunbeam touches them. The zigzag band, 

 too, fits in with the shadows, and is not easily distin- 

 guishable from the dark wavering lines and spots and 

 blotches made by twigs and leaves that intercept the 

 sunlight. 



The adders of the downs are not so varied in colour 

 as in the New Forest, and in most cases have a light 

 yellowish ground colour with an intense black mark. 

 Some beautiful varieties are, however, to be seen. 

 Last summer a shepherd described to me one he had 

 killed as a very pretty creature, with a bright chestnut 

 red zigzag band on a whitish body. 



At a dinner-table at a village in the downs where 

 I was staying, I once found it necessary to explain to 

 the others that it did not make me miserable to be 



