272 Wild Life in a Southern Coimty 



ground, and to see the pointed tail of a snake being 

 dragged after him under cover. 



In February there are sometimes a few days of warm 

 weather (about the last week), and a solitary snake may 

 perhaps chance to crawl forth ; but they are not generally 

 visible till later, and, if it be a cold spring, remain torpid 

 till the wind changes. When the hedges have grown 

 green, and the sun, rising higher in the sky, raises the 

 temperature, even though clouds be passing over, the 

 snakes appear regularly, but even then not till the sun 

 has been up some hours. Later on they may occasionally 

 be found coiled up in a circle two together on the bank. 



In the summer some of them appear of great thickness 

 almost as big round as the wrist. These are the females, 

 and are about to deposit their eggs. They may usually 

 be noticed close to cow-yards. The cattle in summer graze 

 in the fields and the sheds are empty ; but there are large 

 manure heaps overgrown with weeds, and in these the 

 snakes' eggs are left. Rabbits are fond of visiting these 

 cow-yards many of which are at a distance from the 

 farmstead and sometimes bring forth a litter there. 



When the mowers have laid the tall grass in swathes 

 snakes are often found on them or under them by the 

 haymakers, whose prongs or forks throw the grass about 

 to expose a large surface to the sun. The haymakers kill 

 them without mercy, and numbers thus meet with their 

 fate. They vary very much in size from eighteen inches to 

 three feet in length. I have seen specimens which could 

 not have been less than four feet long, and as thick as a 

 rake-handle. That would be an exceptional case, but not 

 altogether rare. The labourers will tell you of much larger 

 snakes, but I never saw one. 



There is no subject, indred, upon which they make 



