APRIL DAYS 63 



conspicuously. He lies so still that at first glance 

 you might wonder whether he be a snake or a tree- 

 root chance-grown to its semblance. But his head 

 is raised, he is alert; his fixed gaze includes all 

 the surroundings. One step more, and before you 

 realise that he is moving, he is gone. The mossy 

 boulder, or the wall at the back of the shelter, is 

 the gate to his retreat; and only a momentary 

 rustling tells that something is moving there after 

 the reptile has vanished. A frightened lizard will 

 almost immediately return to the favourite nook, if 

 the observer be quiet ; but a snake, once alarmed, 

 is much more critical of his neighbourhood, and 

 will not soon come forth. The early spring is the 

 season of his most frequent martyrdom at the hand 

 of man ; for he is then most eager for sunshine, and 

 the forest of the hedge affords the least protection. 

 Many have been the spring seasons during 

 which the sun has called the scaly ophidians to its 

 worship. The records of their histories are few, 

 but not transient. Nature has printed them, 

 deep down in the cainozoic rocks, in characters 

 which an epoch frets not more than a day the 

 silent, eternal witnesses of a remote past. And 



