OUR SHAKES. 45 



adders. I remember in particular a churchyard in 

 one of the lonely villages of Norfolk in which was a 

 tombstone ornamented with a sculptured snake with 

 its tail in its mouth forming a ring. Doubtless it 

 was intended as an emblem of eternity, but there it 

 was looked upon as proof positive of the manner of 

 the man's death, and we children used to look at it 

 with awe, while one of our elders related the story 

 of the man gathering wood, when an adder " stung " 

 him, &c., &c. 



As there is, no doubt, some residuum of truth 

 even in the wildest legends we may believe that death 

 after the bite of a viper is not an utterly unknown 

 circumstance. The physical constitution of the 

 victim, the state of his health at the time, will no 

 doubt affect the case. Very likely a person of feeble 

 constitution, whose blood was in an impure state, 

 and who chanced to get bittsn in the sultry days of 

 July or August, might succumb to the venomous 

 bite ; otherwise I should say not. Such was the case 

 with a man at Folkestone many years ago, he was 

 bitten on the hand and died in a few hours ; but his 

 medical attendant told me that the state of his blood 

 from drink was such that it took very little to kill 

 him. Any instances brought forward on either 

 side of the question must necessarily be interesting. 

 From one or two accounts I have read, and from the 

 following for which I can vouch, it would appeal- 

 that the veuoni does not always act in the same way. 

 Mr. Wood mentions a case in which there was in- 

 tense pain and fever ; in the following instance there 

 was little of either. 

 I was out entomologising sonic few years ago, 



