ADDER AND GRASS SNAKE 233 



the Adder is the only venomous or poisonous 

 reptile that we have upon the British list, it is, as 

 Miss Corelli hints, only in the case of self-defence 

 that the Adder puts its poison fangs into opera- 

 tion. Whenever it can do so, the Snake will 

 glide away into the undergrowth, but when the 

 dam (the female) has young, or when otherwise 

 molested, she makes no secret of showing her 

 powers of self-defence. 



One of my best friends is the most experienced 

 reptile hunter and student in this country. He 

 is our greatest living authority on British reptiles, 

 and has hunted and handled thousands of speci- 

 mens — venomous and otherwise — yet no harm has 

 ever befallen him. 



There is so much nonsense written nowadays of 

 the designs of some of these so-called harmful 

 animals, that it is a thousand pities misleading 

 statements are permitted to pass unchallenged. 

 Even two of our commonest and most useful 

 Amphibians — the Frog and Toad — are positively 

 loathed by many people, and few seem to realise 

 the wonderful metamorphoses through which they 

 pass, and their economic value as insect eaters. 



The Grass Snake, then, is quite harmless, but I 

 have seen it killed many times under the mistaken 

 impression that it was poisonous. It attains a 

 length of about three feet, is greenish-yellow in 

 colour, has a tail which tapers to a fine point, and 



