HINTS TO ADDER-SEEKERS 27 



the shout was evidently meant for me, but I took 

 no notice. I kept my eyes on my adder, and soon 

 the two horsemen came down at a gallop to me, 

 and of course before they were fifty yards from me, 

 the thunder of the hoofs had sent the creature into 

 hiding. Sitting on their horses they stared in angry 

 silence at me, and finding I had to speak first, I 

 apologised for being in the preserve, and said the 

 keeper, knowing me to be a harmless naturalist, 

 had given me permission to come there to find a 

 flower I was interested in — also an adder. What, 

 he demanded, did I want with adders ? Just to 

 see them, I said ; I had found one and was watch- 

 ing it when his approach had driven it away. I 

 then added that adders were exceedingly abundant 

 on this land of his, that I had just found and 

 measured one which was twenty-eight inches long 

 — the biggest adder I had ever found. 



" Where is it? — let's see it ! " shouted both men, 

 and I had to tell them that I had released it, and 

 it had gone into a bush about forty yards from 

 where we stood. 



They stared at me, then exchanged glances, then 

 the big man asked me if I meant what I had said — 

 if I had actually caught a big adder only to release 

 it unharmed ? 



That, I said, was what I had done. 



" Then you did wrong," almost yelled the 

 second man. " To catch and release an adder that 

 might bite and kill some one any day — I consider it 

 a crime." 



