At Home with Wild Nature 



brain power of what I consider the least intelligent 

 sentient creature to be met with in Britain. 



During the earlier years of the Great War I had 

 young soldiers billeted upon me during their course of 

 training in this part of the country. Whilst out trying 

 to show two of them something of the natural history of 

 the North Downs one afternoon, we caught two slow- 

 worms, or blindworms, took them home, and turned 

 them loose in a forcing frame in the garden. The 

 following morning one of the young soldiers wandering 

 round my grounds after breakfast looked in to see how 

 the blindworms were getting on, and dashed indoors to 

 tell me that they were engaged in a desperate battle. I 

 ran out to see the fight, and upon reaching the forcing 

 frame could hardly believe the evidence of my senses. 

 One of the reptiles had seized the body of the other by 

 about the middle, and the oppressed one lacked in- 

 telligence to such an astounding extent that it actually 

 turned, and, seizing its own tail, began to bite that 

 under the evident impression that it was part of the 

 body of its adversary. I dashed indoors for a camera 

 and dark slides, but alas ! upon returning the fight had 

 finished, and I lost a much-coveted picture. 



This experience naturally confirmed the low esti- 

 mate I had already formed of the intelligence of 

 reptiles generally, but in a recent summer I suffered 

 something in the nature of a mental shock in 

 the opposite direction. Coming upon a very large 

 grass snake I was anxious to take some still and 

 moving pictures of the creature, but soon discovered 



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