

WILD LIFE 99 



out all day, and on most days alone on the downs. 

 It was, I assured them, a constant pleasure to see the 

 beautiful creatures there the birds, the adder, the 

 fox, and others. After a long silence, a man sitting 

 opposite to me said, " Excuse me, sir, but did I under- 

 stand you to say that you consider the adder a beau- 

 tiful creature ? " I replied in the affirmative, and 

 after another interval of silence he laid down his 

 knife and fork and delivered himself as follows : 

 "Well, that I can't understand. An adder is an 

 adder, and there's no doubt about what a man feels 

 when he sees it. I have never heard any one till 

 this moment say the contrary. Most people kill an 

 adder when they find one. I don't. When I sud- 

 denly see an adder before me when I am out walking 

 or riding, and stop still, and he gives me a look out 

 of his eyes, and I see that he is just getting ready 

 to fly at me, I don't stop to kill him. I'm off. You 

 call that a beautiful creature O Lord ! The look 

 in his eyes is quite enough for me." 



This is one and a somewhat extreme view of the 

 adder's character. But it comes nearest to the popu- 

 lar feeling about that creature whose power to harm 

 us we so greatly exaggerate. Here is a case which 

 presents us with the opposite extreme. A gentleman 

 of Bognor, Mr. W. H. B. Fletcher, occasionally amuses 

 himself by taming adders, which he takes with a 

 butterfly net on the downs. He is accustomed to 

 pick up his tame adders by the handful six or seven 



