A YEAR OF SNAKES 339 



We look for it again in the same place, treading 

 with caution, and then it is an easy matter to 

 score another notch in the feud of Eden. 



The frequency of adders this season is not a 

 climatic symptom. A copse on the hill was grubbed 

 up in late winter, and no fewer than forty-seven 

 vipers were killed by the woodmen. They were 

 easily accounted for, because they were caught in 

 their dormitory. The viper comes abroad in spring 

 very earl} 7 , but in March there is not a third the 

 life in his movements that he can develop in June. 

 The number of corpses yielded by that little wood 

 was a revelation to the villagers, who comparatively 

 seldom see a viper alive. There was unbroken joy 

 at their destruction, for every one dislikes the viper. 

 He is not unapt to lie in a rabbit's run-way out of a 

 bush, and when a dog pushes through has before now 

 bitten it so badly as to cause its death. A few years 

 ago a dog came out of a bush with a viper hanging 

 from it. The keeper declared thereafter that the 

 reptile jumped on its back, for nearly every one here 

 believes that a viper can jump. There was no harm 

 done that time, except to the viper, whose fangs were 

 so caught in the dog's hair that it could be knocked 

 off and killed. The lives of horses and cattle have 

 several times been endangered, and even lost, by 

 an angry viper striking at their nose or throat as 

 they graze by him. In July their venom is at its 

 worst, and the reptiles, especially the gravid females, 

 lie insolently about where any one might tread on 

 them. We have frequently been within one step of 

 them before seeing the spotted, swollen thong of 

 death on the path. 



