A SNAKY SPOT 87 



as wild a bit of desert as one could wish to be in, 

 where a man could spy all day upon its shy inha- 

 bitants, and no one would come and spy upon him. 



Here, if anywhere, was my exulting thought when 

 I first beheld it, there should be adders for me. 

 There was a snakiness in the very look of the place, 

 and I could almost feel by anticipation the delightful 

 thrill in my nerves invariably experienced at the 

 sight of a serpent. And as I went very cautiously 

 along, wishing for the eyes of a dragon-fly so as to 

 be able to see all round me, a coil of black and 

 yellow caught my sight at a distance of a few yards 

 ahead, and was no sooner seen than gone. The spot 

 from which the shy creature had vanished was a 

 small, circular, natural platform on the edge of the 

 bank, surrounded with grass and herbage, and a little 

 dwarf, ragged furze; the platform was composed of 

 old, dead bracken and dry grass, and had a smooth, 

 flat surface, pressed down as if some creature used 

 it as a sleeping-place. It was, I saw, the favourite 

 sleeping- or basking-place of an adder, and by-and-by, 

 or in a few hours' time, I should be able to get a 

 good view of the creature. Later in the day, on 

 going back to the spot, I did find my adder on its 

 platform, and was able to get within three or four 

 yards, and watch it for some minutes before it slipped 

 gently down the bank and out of sight. 



This adder was a very large (probably gravid) female, 

 very bright in the sunshine, the broad, zigzag band, 



