SNAKES 105 



basking in the rare sunshine within easy reach 

 of their retreat. 



I know a spot in the corner of a cornfield, near 

 an abandoned cottage garden, where on a bright 

 day I can find four or five vipers coiled at the edge 

 of the long grass that the plough does not reach. 

 Neither do the oats grow in that corner of the 

 field, but the scarlet pimpernel rambles over the 

 stone-brash soil and decorates the vipers' with- 

 drawing room with their bright blossoms. It was 

 a red-letter day when first I stepped into this 

 enchanted corner and saw a great female viper 

 stretched across my path, then a little further on 

 the darker and more slender body of a male, then 

 two others coiled in one nest. 



Once I put my stick into this coil of two and 

 succeeded in throwing one of them some yards out 

 into the field. It was surprising to see with what 

 unerring instinct the creature pointed back for 

 ' home.' No matter how often I turned it or even 

 twirled it about with my stick, the moment it came 

 to rest again it went flowing back as true as needle 

 to the magnet. 



We hear of children and others handling vipers 

 with confidence and escaping their fangs as by 

 faith. George Borrow tells how he seized one of 

 them unbitten, and it was one of the incidents in 

 his narrative that every critic who knew nothing 

 about vipers doubted. My first adventure with 

 a viper was in this wise. Seeing the motion of 

 some animal through the dog's mercury, I followed 



