VI. 

 THE ADDER'S SIESTA. 



Two " hedgers and tiners," demolishing a 

 bank of earth at Turner's Corner as I 

 walked along the Headley Road this morn- 

 ing, came, to their great surprise and no 

 little horror, on a coiled and twisted colony 

 of hibernating adders. I paused in my stroll 

 for ten minutes to watch the unearthing. 

 It was a curious sight ; the lithe and sinuous 

 creatures, recognizable at once as genuine 

 vipers by the zigzag pattern of dark 

 diamond-shaped spots down their glossy 

 green backs, lay curled and entwined with 

 one another in snaky amity, fast asleep 

 past waking, and completely filling up, as 

 with a living mass of inextricable knots, 



42 



