218 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



would in all probability have found an adder 

 within a few hundred yards of the garden gate. 

 Once indeed ten inches of a bright-hued female 

 vanished over a low boulder and under a bush. 

 We fired the bush, but it was a case of 



" She wandered down the mountain side/' 

 and we saw no further trace of her, but were hard 

 at work for twenty minutes putting out the con- 

 flagration. 



More profitable, and much less tiring, were our 

 rambles in the surgery. One adder of 24f- inches, 

 which we dissected, had slain a bullock only the 

 week before and was found close to its victim. 

 It was a female, and contained seven well-developed 

 embryos. From a larger specimen Leighton had 

 once taken seventeen, but never more. One 

 authority gave the number as ranging up to forty ! 

 That, if true, would in itself settle, once and for 

 aJl, the vexed question of the female swallowing 

 the young to get them out of harm's way, for, 

 by the simple process of dilating the sesophagus 

 with a blowpipe, we satisfied ourselves that that 

 waiting room might have accommodation for 

 seventeen, but that never could room be found 

 inside it for forty. 



That district of South Wales, where Leighton 

 accumulated material for his book, is particularly 

 favourable to the adder, for the hillsides are 

 sparsely populated by human beings, besides 



