THE SNAKES. 305 



Wonderful tales are related of Australian snakes jump- 

 ing backwards to bite, and our own adder has been 

 credited with a similar trick. This, like most zoological 

 fiction, is not without its grain of truth; and the fact is 

 that the adder, like the common snake, does coil and un- 

 coil with such rapidity, its belly touching the ground the 

 whole time, as to give the impression of a spring. But 

 for any snake to leap several times its own length is a 

 sheer impossibility. The average length of the adder may 

 be given at 18 inches, but I have found examples of 24 

 inches, and have read of others much longer. It is more 

 common in our southern counties, becoming rarer in the 

 north of Scotland, though met with on Jura, Mull, and 

 some other of the isles, especially in the deer-forests. 1 

 The forked tongue of the adder, a sensitive organ that 

 aids it in finding its food, has absolutely nothing to do 

 with its bite, which is, by the way, often described as 

 a "sting." Like our other snakes, the adder hibernates, 

 unless disturbed, until the end of spring, though its sleep 

 is lighter than that of the smooth snake. I have found 

 adders lively in the New Forest in the middle of April, 

 rarely before ; but Sir Herbert Maxwell tells me that he 

 has seen them in Scotland as early as March. The thin- 

 shelled egg is hatched out in the body of the parent, the 

 young varying in number, according to Dr Stradling, from 

 fourteen to forty. On the vexed question of whether the 

 adder swallows her young for safety, I shall not enter. 

 I have never, in spite of much patient watching, seen 

 anything myself that could be construed into such a 

 performance, but, on the other hand, I have met many 

 who, with nothing to gain by lying, declared that they 

 have witnessed it on many occasions. Always prepared 

 for the marvellous in nature, however, a frame of mind 

 induced by even a nodding acquaintance with her, I cannot 

 find sufficient reason to disbelieve the fact, though ocular 

 testimony would of course be welcome. 



1 Harvie-Browii and Buckley, Fauna of Argyll, p. 216. 

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