HINTS TO ADDER-SEEKERS 81 



was my surprise and delight at finding its under- 

 surface of a colour or " shade " I had never previ- 

 ously seen — the lovely blue I have mentioned. 

 There was no break in the colour ; every belly- 

 plate from the neck to the tip of the tail was of a 

 uniform exquisite turquoise blue, or considering 

 that turquoise blues vary in depth and purity, it 

 would be more exact to describe the colour as 

 most like that of the forget-me-not, but being 

 enamelled, it reminded me rather of the most 

 exquisite blue one has seen on some priceless piece 

 of old Chinese pottery. I think that if some 

 famous aged artist of the great period, a worshipper 

 of colour whose life had been spent in the long 

 endeavour to capture and make permanent the 

 most exquisite fleeting tints in Nature, had seen 

 the blue on that adder he would have been over- 

 come at the same time with rapture and despair. 

 And I think, too, that if Mother Nature in turning 

 out this ophidian had muddled things, as she is apt 

 to do occasionally, and had reversed the position 

 of the colours, putting the tawny yellow and 

 black zigzag band on the belly and the blue 

 above, the sight of the creature would have given 

 rise to a New Forest myth. It would have been 

 spread abroad that an angelic being had appeared 

 in those parts in the form of a serpent but in its 

 natural celestial colour. 



After keeping it a long time in my hand, I 

 released it reluctantly, and saw it steal away into 

 the cavity at the roots of the oak. Here was its 



