Strange Natural History Superstitions 



clouded faith, considered as efficacious against fire as 

 any of our up-to-date precautionary measures. 



In my youth I was frequently told that if I should 

 happen to be bitten by an adder the first thing to do 

 was to rush to the nearest stream and take a drink of 

 water, because the snake was sure to do so, and if it 

 beat me there my doom was sealed, whereas if I fore- 

 stalled the creature it would inevitably perish in my 

 stead. It would be very interesting to learn the origin 

 of a belief of this character. 



There are, I am told, people still living of such 

 sweet simplicity that they are willing to believe that if 

 a wandering spider were inadvertently to run over the 

 body of a viper basking on some sunlit bank the snake 

 would burst from very rage at the indignity. 



I have often been asked the question : " Do you 

 believe that adders swallow their young ones ? " In the 

 days of my pristine honesty, long before I had made a 

 study of the ways of snakes and doves, I used to answer 

 with the characteristic bluntness of a " newly caught " 

 Yorkshireman : " No, madam, I do not ! " But 

 wisdom comes to the wildest enthusiast for truth, be he 

 a bishop or a butterman, and I now answer : " I have 

 never seen it done," which is non-committal enough to 

 render it inoffensive. One hesitates to shatter ruth- 

 lessly the beliefs of others. 



Although I have had almost as wide an experience of 

 adders as the famous Brusher Mills himself, still I have 

 never witnessed the occurrence, otherwise I should have 

 been after that reward of five pounds my old friend 



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