102 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



coiled up near it. When they discovered it they were 

 very much afraid, owing to its great size and threat- 

 ening aspect, as it rose up and hissed loudly at them. 

 But it moved away very slowly, hindered, like the 

 famous serpent of Horsham, by " a quantity of thick- 

 ness in the middle." Arming themselves with big flints, 

 they began to stone it, and one sharp flint striking 

 it with great force cut its body open, when, from the 

 woimd, out fell one of the full-grown young larks. 

 When they had finished killing the snake, and pressed 

 its body where the thickness was with their feet, the 

 other four birds were forced out. They took the 

 snake home, and all the people in the village came 

 to look at it, hanging to the branch of a tree; and 

 the schoolmaster measured it with a foot-rule, and 

 found that it was exactly four feet in length. Its 

 body, the boy said, was as thick as his arm. 



There was nothing incredible in his story. There 

 are well-authenticated cases, of much bigger snakes, 

 some six feet long, killed in England. Last summer I 

 caught and measured four snakes in the New Forest, 

 and the two biggest were three feet, and three feet 

 one inch, respectively. If these snakes had been killed 

 they would probably have measured more, as it is 

 exceedingly difiicult to get the proper length when 

 they are violently struggling to free themselves, and 

 contracting their bodies ; but I should have been 

 very sorry to kill one even to add several inches to 

 its three feet. 



