HINTS TO ADDER-SEEKERS 17 
the village school, and pulling his pets out, would 
play with and make the children handle them 
and take note of their beautiful form and motions. 
This snake-lover possessed at Aldermaston one 
of the largest parks in southern England, abounding 
in oak trees so ancient and of so noble a growth 
that they are a wonder to all who see them. This 
vast park was his snake-preserve, and in moist 
green places, by running waters, he planted thickets 
for their shelter. But when his time came and he 
died, the son who succeeded him thought he would 
get more glory and sport by preserving pheasants, 
and accordingly engaged a little army of men and 
boys to extirpate the reptiles. There is nothing 
now to recall the dead man’s “fantastic hobby ” 
but a stained-glass window—I wish it had been 
done by a better artist—placed by his pious widow 
in the beautiful parish church, where you can see 
him among angelic figures surrounded by a com- 
pany of birds and beasts and reptiles of many 
shapes and colours, and at the margins the familiar 
words, He prayeth best who loveth best, ete. 
Let us return to our quest. The trouble is 
when you have arrived at the adder-haunt to find 
the adder. A man may spend years, even a life- 
time, without seeing one. Some time ago I talked 
to an aged shepherd whose flock fed in a wide 
furze - grown hollow in the South Downs where 
adders were not uncommon. He told me he had 
been shepherding forty years in that place, and 
during the entire period had found three adders! 
