334. Wild Life in a Southern County. 
may sometimes find half a dozen, and they haunt the 
same spot year after year. So soon as the violets 
push up and open their sweet-scented flowers under 
the first warm gleams of the spring sunshine, the 
snake ventures forth from his hole to bask on the 
south side of the bank. In looking for violets it is 
not unusual to hear a rustling of the dead leaves that 
still strew the ground, and to see the pointed tail of 
a snake being dragged after him under cover. 
In February there are sometimes a few days of 
warm weather (about the last week), and a solitary 
snake may perhaps chance to crawl forth; but they 
are not generally visible till later, and, if it be a cold 
spring, remain torpid till the wind changes. When 
the hedges have grown green, and the sun, rising 
higher in the sky, raises the temperature, even though 
clouds be passing over, the snakes appear regularly, 
but even then not till the sun has been up some hours. 
Later on they may occasionally be found coiled up in 
a circle two together on the bank. 
In the summer some of them appear of great 
thickness—almost as big round as the wrist. These 
are the females, and are about to deposit their eggs. 
They may usually be noticed close to cow-yards. 
The cattle in summer graze in the fields and the sheds 
are empty; but there are large manure heaps over- 
grown with weeds, and in these the snakes’ eggs are left. 
Rabbits are fond of visiting these cow-yards—many 
