82 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIR 



that if we are seeking after knowledge sense in the adder a creature so dull 



or something we call knowledge be- of sense, or so devoid of senses which 



cause that is a convenient word and enables it to find its mate and which 



can be made to cover many things it will bring together an assembly of a 



would be difficult to name, then to kill dozen or twenty or more male adders ? 



is no profit, but on the contrary, a dis- Here, then, are but two or three of 



tinct loss. Fontana dissected 40,000 a score of questions which can only be 



adders in his busy day, but if there is answered by field naturalists who ab- 



anything we want to know about the stain from killing. But a better reason 



adder beyond the number of scales on for not killing may be given than this 



the integument and the number, shape desire to discover a new fact the 



and size of the bones in the dead coil, mere satisfying of a mental curiosity, 



he and the innumerable ophiologists I know good naturalists who have 



and herpetologists who came after him come to hate the very sight of a gun 



are unable to tell us. We can read simply because that useful instrument 



about the scales and bones in a thou- has become associated in their case 



sand books. We want to know more with the thought and the memory of 



about the living thing, even about its the degrading or disturbing effect on 



common life habits. It has not yet the mind of killing the creatures we 



been settled whether or not the female love, whose secrets we wish to find out. 



adder swallows its young, not, like the Let us now return to the adder- 



fer-de-lance, to digest them in its seeker who has unwittingly disturbed 



stomach, but to save their threatened the adder he has found and who sees 



lives. Nor do we know how the adder it about to vanish into the brake. He 



finds and succeeds in capturing its has been waiting all this time to know 



minute prey. Many of us have wit- what to do in such a case. He must 



nessed the pursuit and capture of a let it vanish and comfort himself with 



frog by a snake, but nobody, it appears, the thought that he has discovered its 



has seen an adder take a vole or field- haunt and may re-find it another day, 



mouse. I can only suppose that it especially if he is so fortunate as to 



fascinates the field- vole, and the smooth scare it from its favourite bed on which 



snake fascinates the spry lizard, just it is accustomed to lie sunning itself 



as the ring-snake fascinates or hypno- at certain hours each day until the 



tises the frog. Again, what is the progress of the season will make it too 



