ADDERS AND GRASS SNAKES. 179 



protecting ourselves from their assaults as best we may, thankful the 

 while that the evil is no worse. Our winged pests are innocence 

 itself compared with their congeners in other lands. Our midge, 

 for instance, is to the mosquito as the dog-fish is to the shark, 

 as the domestic cat is to the tiger ; while our gadflies and ^Estri, 

 though sufficiently annoying to our cattle at certain seasons, are to 

 be regarded as absolutely harmless if we compare them with the 

 venomous Zimb of Abyssinia, or the still deadlier Tsetse of 

 Southern Africa. The Abyssinian insect, by the way the 

 Zimb is probably the Zebub of the Hebrew Scriptures, the estima- 

 tion in which it was held from the earliest ages being clearly 

 enough indicated by its place in the word Beelzebub, " the prince 

 of devils." Livingstone's account of the Tsetse is one of the most 

 interesting chapters in his Travels. Shall the intrepid explorer 

 be restored to us 1 We are afraid not. It is only too probable that, 

 as Scott said of his protege and friend, the author of the Scenes of 

 Infancy 



" A distant and a deadly shore 

 Has Ley den's cold remains ! " 



The districts of Ardgour and Sunart have always had an 

 unenviable notoriety for the great numbers of adders and grass 

 snakes to be found in them, the reptiles frequently attaining to a 

 size unknown, we believe, anywhere else in the West Highlands. 

 Within the last two or three years we have noticed that they are 

 rapidly becoming numerous in Lochaber, much more so than they 

 used to be, though the general opinion, in which we heartily 

 concur, is that we were getting on very well without them. 

 During an ornithological ramble among the hills a few days 

 ago, we knelt to drink at a fountain that we fell in with, welling 

 up 'cool and sparkling beside a large moss-covered drift boulder 

 among the heather, when we were not a little startled by the 



% 



presence of no less than three adders that lay coiled together in 



