28 IN NATURE'S WAYS 



The question whether adders do swallow their 

 young when suddenly surprised and alarmed is still 

 often debated. The young ones have a mysterious 

 way of disappearing when disturbed, which may have 

 led some people to think they must have been 

 swallowed ; and then the fact that wriggling young 

 ones are found within the mother's body has strength- 

 ened this belief, and many good observers declare 

 they have seen the act of swallowing. 



In a letter dated 1776 Gilbert White describes how 

 in the August of the previous year he surprised and 

 killed an adder as it lay in the sun, and found on 

 cutting it open that there were fifteen young ones 

 within its body, the shortest measuring fully seven 

 inches. " This little fry," he wrote, " issued into the 

 world with the true viper spirit about them, showing 

 great alertness ; they twisted and wriggled about, 

 and set themselves up, and gaped very wide when 

 touched with a stick, showing manifest tokens of 

 menace and defiance." 



Adders and grass -snakes may be expected to appear 

 in March, though the adder is about earlier in warm 

 weather. He loves to bask on a sunny bank, or, on the 

 hills, on such a dry sunny place such as an old stem of 

 gorse. If you once find an adder's basking-place on a 

 grassy bank, you may expect to see him there another 

 day. You have to stand very still to catch an adder 

 napping ; at the least sudden movement he glides away. 



Even for the adder the good word may be said 

 that he hunts and destroys young mice. The grass- 

 snake also is a mouse-hunter ; he will take young 

 rabbits, birds such as larks, and birds' eggs, and he is 

 especially fond of frogs a thrilling sight it always is 

 to see the glistening snake gliding through the grass 

 after its prey. 



