10 THE EEV. J. G. WOOD. 



to fall close to it without injuring it. Sometimes even 

 this plan would fail, and then there was nothing for it 

 but to leave the snake master of the situation, and to 

 go home without it. But generally there was little or 

 no trouble of this kind, and snake -races could be con- 

 ducted in the water almost as easily as upon dry land. 

 The snakes very soon learned to recognise their masters, 

 and to refrain from making use of the highly disagree- 

 able odour with which Nature has gifted them as a 

 means of protection against their foes. And, even 

 when illicitly taken into school, they would lie quite 

 quietly in the pocket without attempting to escape, or 

 in any way giving notification of their presence. 



I do not know that my father ever joined with any 

 degree of enthusiasm in the ordinary out-door games of 

 a schoolboy's life. He was something of a cricketer at 

 one time, but, after his usual unlucky manner, contrived 

 one day to catch his foot in a hole only a few inches 

 deep, and, in the fall which resulted, to break his right 

 leg rather badly and to dislocate his ankle. This in- 

 volved confinement to bed for several weeks under 

 peculiarly disagreeable circumstances, of which he gives 

 a graphic account in his " Insects at Home," when 

 speaking of that unpleasant creature, the common 

 flea: 



When I was at school (he says), I had the misfortune to suffer a 

 simultaneous dislocation and fracture of the ankle, and was con- 

 veyed to the infirmary, a large room at the top of the house. 

 Now, this room had been without tenants ever since I remembered 

 it, and I believe that for at least seven years no human being 

 had entered the room, except to open the windows in the morning 



