22 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
advantages of not killing. The following account 
of killing an adder—the last time I did such a 
thing—may serve to throw a little light on the 
question. Adders were common at a place where 
I was staying at a farm in the New Forest, but I 
had never seen one near the house until one sultry 
afternoon in July, when coming into a path which 
led from the farm-yard into and through a hazel 
copse, I came upon one lying in the middle of the 
path. It was a large adder, so sluggish that it 
made no attempt to escape, but turned and struck 
at me when I approached it. I thought of the 
little children, for this was the very spot where 
they came to play and hunt for fowls’ eggs every 
afternoon; the adder, if left there, might be a 
danger to them; it was necessary either to kill 
or remove it. Then it occurred to me that to 
remove it would be useless, since if the creature’s 
place was there, it would infallibly return to it 
from any distance. The homing instinct is strong 
in the adder and in most serpents. And so to 
end the matter I killed and buried it, and went 
on my way. My way was through the copse and 
over a fence and ditch on the other side, and I 
was no sooner over the ditch than I beheld a 
second adder, bigger than the last and just as 
sluggish. It was, however, not:strange, as in July 
the female adder is often like that, especially in 
sultry thunderous weather. I teased it to make it 
move away, then picked it up to examine it, after 
which I released it and watched it gliding slowly 
