HINTS TO ADDER-SEEKERS 23 
away into the shadow of the bushes. And, watching 
it, I became conscious of a change in my mental 
attitude towards the living things that were so 
much to me, my chief happiness having always 
been in observing their ways. The curiosity was 
not diminished, but the feeling that had gone with 
it for a very long time past was changed to what 
it had been when I was sportsman and collector, 
always killing things. The serpent gliding away 
before me was nothing but a worm with poison 
fangs in its head and a dangerous habit of striking 
at unwary legs—a creature to be crushed with the 
heel and no more thought about. I had _ lost 
something precious, not, I should say, in any 
ethical sense, seeing that we are in a world where 
we must kill to live, but valuable in my special 
case, to me as a field-naturalist. Abstention from 
killing had made me a better observer and a happier 
being, on account of the new or different feeling 
towards animal life which it had engendered. And 
what was this new feeling—wherein did it differ 
from the old of my shooting and collecting days, 
seeing that since childhood I had always had the 
same intense interest in all wild life? The power, 
beauty, and grace of the wild creature, its perfect 
harmony in nature, the exquisite correspondence 
between organism, form and faculties, and the 
environment, with the plasticity and _ intelligence 
for the readjustment of the vital machinery, daily, 
hourly, momentarily, to meet all changes in the 
conditions, all contingencies; and thus, amidst 
