ADDERS 107 



XXXVIII 



To return for a moment to the subject of snakes 

 it is well known that their poison is ren- 

 dered more potent by hot weather. The 

 only instance of fatal results from the bite of an adder 

 which has ever come under my notice happened 

 after three weeks of intense heat in July 1876. 

 Four Scottish Militia regiments were brigaded in 

 camp at Holmwood, near Dorking, during the 

 summer manoeuvres. A bicyclist, who had come 

 down from London to see the troops, was bitten 

 by an adder in the heather, and died in a few hours. 



Even adders are not without their services to 

 man. During the great plague of field-voles in 

 Scotland in 1891-2, the only adder I happened to 

 see killed had a full-sized vole in its gullet. 



xxxix 



Few of us make enough of our gardens in spring. 

 We have trained our gardeners to con- spring- 

 form to the vicious habit which draws F1 wers 

 people to the town during the first acts of Nature's 

 annual opera, and to concentrate all their skill and 

 ingenuity on a display of colour in autumn. Every- 



