A SNAKE IN EDEN 127 



more freely frequented by villagers, especially the chil 

 dren, in May. 



If the attribute indicates disparagement, the Devil s 

 Dyke or Grimm s, it is ill-named. Wherever short 

 reaches, or sometimes pools, of it have survived, they 

 are of singular beauty vistas of Eden, to which, it is 

 generally understood, the Devil was always an occasional 

 visitor. These Devil s bits (to steal a name from an 

 agreeable flower), have peculiar attractions in spring. 

 The steep sides of the dyke, often as long as a cricket 

 pitch, are dotted with bramble and holly ; trees such as 

 oak and beech springing from the bottom have been 

 drawn to a goodly height in very straight pillars, till 

 they triumphantly overtop the ramparts thrown up by 

 our stone-age ancestors. Four-footed creatures have 

 found the banks suitable for tunnelling. There are 

 dwelling holes in some of the older trees, whose roots 

 half exposed on the lower sides trace seductive patterns. 

 If you wish to find birds nests or hear the migrant 

 warblers sing or to be enfolded in the blue mist from the 

 wild hyacinths, your first choice of a walk will be down 

 the Devil s Dyke. 



The choice was exercised one soft and odorous day. 

 Plants breaking through the dead leaves let loose the 

 smell of very spring ; but, as you savoured these, you 

 became suddenly aware of a stronger and more pungent 

 smell, the quite unmistakable evidence of a fox. In a 

 suitable air, even a dull-sensed man can detect an earth 

 at the distance of a chain or more. No wonder that 

 hounds can run a fox with their heads in air and at some 

 remove from the actual line. This earth was soon dis 

 covered, and not by smell only. On the polished mud 

 in front of it, hammered into a path by the to-and-fro 

 passage of dog and vixen, were fixed by a strong iron 



