72 NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR 



the tail and thus carried towards a path. Some- 

 how, however, he contrives to loop his neck around 

 his body, and has to be dropped, falling on the bare 

 twigs of a dead hawthorn shrub. Here he coils 



THE BRITISH ADDER. 



tightly, but the air in the shade here being by no 

 means warm, he soon becomes lethargic, and a few 

 minutes later his tail can again be held and he be 

 carried as before. Laid on a bare path a snake is 

 almost helpless, finding nothing to aid its progress; 



