MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



incautiously handles them ; but as a rule they 

 are timid and rather sluggish creatures, 

 much more likely to take fright and flee 

 when discovered than to turn and -rend one. 

 I come across them frequently on basking 

 paths among the heath in summer; they 

 lie sunning themselves on the warm sand ; 

 but when I endeavour to rouse them to 

 resistance by poking at them with my stick, 

 they refuse, as a rule, to show fight, and 

 after a few minutes of hesitation and lazy 

 reluctance to move, they retire in high dis- 

 pleasure to their home among the bracken. 

 Never once have I known them try actively 

 to resent my intentional intrusion on their 

 post-prandial reflections. 



We have but two kinds of snakes, all told, 

 in England, popular prejudice to the con- 

 trary notwithstanding. One of them is the 

 harmless and pretty ring-snake, easily dis- 

 tinguished by the absence of the rhomboidal 

 zigzag markings ; the other, who may as 

 easily be recognized by their presence, is 



46 



