196 A FARMER'S YEAR 



spot at the foot of the Vineyard Hills. Now I wish that I had left 

 them alone, for although I took every care, even to removing a 

 large sod of their native soil and wiring them round, from that 

 day to this they have never shown a single leaf. 



By the way, the finest specimens of purple orchis that I have 

 ever seen grow in Websdill Wood, on my farm at Bedingham. 



May 8. — To-day, Sunday, is dull and rather cold, with occa 

 sional showers of light rain, and none of the sunshine which is 

 now so badly needed. When I was writing of snakes a few days 

 back I did not guess that I should so soon be a witness of their 

 dangerous properties even in this country. To-day I heard, 

 however, that a son of a neighbour of mine, aged twelve, had 

 actually been bitten by a viper, and went to the village where 

 he lives to inquire after him, and to find out the facts of the case. 

 This was what happened, as I had it from the lips of his 

 mother. 



On the previous day she and two of her sons were bird- 

 nesting in a neighbouring wood, when the boy Dick, who it 

 appears has a most unwholesome admiration for reptiles, suddenly 

 called out, ' Here's a beauty ! Look, mother, he has bitten me ; 

 let's take him home.' 



Accordingly she looked, to see Dick holding a wriggling viper 

 in his hand, although at the time she did not know that it was a 

 viper. As she had lived in India, however, she called to him to 

 throw it down, and then, very pluckily, trod on it until she killed 

 it, the reptile striking savagely at her boot the while, although, 

 fortunately for her, it was unable to pierce the leather. 



Then, carrying the dead snake with them, the three of them 

 started homeward till, a few minutes afterwards, the other boy 

 said, ' Look, Dick is turning white,' immediately after which he 

 fell to the ground almost insensible. 



At this moment it chanced that a keeper arrived, for the party 

 had been inadvertently trespassing in a preserve from which he 

 had come to warn them, and by his help the swooning lad was 



