THE SERPENT IN LITERATURE 193 



grubbing up an old stump. Still more wonderful 

 it is to witness a knot or twined mass of adders, 

 not self-buried, semi-torpid, and of the temperature 

 of the cold ground, but hot-blooded in the hot sun, 

 active, hissing, swinging their tails. In a remote 

 corner of this island there exists an extensive boggy 

 heath where adders are still abundant, and grow 

 black as the stagnant rushy pools, and the slime 

 under the turf, which invites the foot with its 

 velvety appearance, but is dangerous to tread upon. 

 In this snaky heath-land, in the warm season, when 

 the frenzy takes them, twenty or thirty or more 

 adders are sometimes found twined together ; they 

 are discovered perhaps by some solitary pedestrian, 

 cautiously picking his way, gun in hand, and the 

 sight amazes and sends a sharp electric shock 

 along his spinal cord. All at once he remembers 

 his gun and discharges it into the middle of the 

 living mass, to boast thereafter to the very end of 

 his life of how he killed a score of adders at one 

 shot. 



To witness this strange thing, and experience the 

 peculiar sensation it gives, it is necessary to go far 

 and to spend much time in seeking and waiting and 

 watching. A bright spring morning in England no 

 longer " craves wary walking," as in the days of 

 Elizabeth. Practically the serpent hardly exists 

 for us, so seldom do we see it, so completely has it 

 dropped out of our consciousness. But if we have 

 known the creature, at home or abroad, and wish 

 in reading to recover the impression of a sweet 



o 



