HINTS TO ADDER-SEEKERS 19 
special organ yet may serve better than vision, 
hearing, smell, and touch together, is of the greatest 
importance to it, since to a creature that lies and 
progresses prone on the ground and has a long 
brittle backbone, the heavy mammalian foot is one 
of the greatest dangers to its life. 
Not only must the seeker go softly, but he must 
have a quick-seeing, ever-searching eye, and behind 
the eye a mind intent on the object. The sharpest 
sight is useless if he falls to thinking of something 
else, since it is not possible for him to be in two 
places at once. To empty the mind as in crystal- 
gazing is a good plan, but if it cannot be emptied, 
if thought will not rest still, it must be occupied 
with adders and nothing else. The exercise and 
discipline is interesting even if we find no adders; 
it reveals in swift flickering glimpses a vanished 
experience or state of the primitive mind—the 
mind which, like that of the inferior animals, is 
a polished mirror, undimmed by speculation, in 
which the extraneous world is vividly reflected. If 
the adder quest goes on for days, it is still best to 
preserve the mood, to think of adders all day, and 
when asleep to dream of them. The dreams, I 
have found, are of two sorts—pleasant and un- 
pleasant. In the former we are the happy first 
finders of the loveliest and most singular serpents 
ever looked upon; in the second we unwittingly 
go up barefooted into a place from which we cannot 
escape, a vast flat region extending to the horizon, 
littered with adders. We have lifted a foot and 
