370 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



any apprehended danger, and then let them out 

 again when she thinks all danger to be past. These 

 be accidents," he says, "that we anglers sometimes 

 see, and often talk of." 



In the case of the English Adder, many instances 

 have been reported in which the young were seen 

 to enter the parent's mouth, and either to leave it 

 when unmolested, or to be found in the aesophagus 

 when the parent was killed. One of the best cases 

 of this kind is recorded in The Zoologist for 1882 

 (p. 394), and is attested by three eye-witnesses, 

 who append their signatures. It is as follows : — 

 " When shooting on Mr Lenox's moor, near 

 Newton Stewart, in Wigtownshire, one of us dis- 

 covered an Adder coiled up on a sunny bank on the 

 moor. Upon his calling to the others of us, we all 

 gathered round, and we then saw the Adder, which 

 by this time had been disturbed, with several young 

 adders round her. We then distinctly saw her open 

 her mouth and allow the young to crawl down her 

 throat, after which she was killed by having her 

 head crushed with the heel of a shooting boot. 

 Having seen the young go down her throat, and 

 being still able to see the movements of them inside 

 her, one of us cut off her head, and some of the 

 young thereupon crawled out of that end of the 

 body. We then laid the body open through its 

 entire length, and found more young adders, which 

 were quite able to strike at the point of a stick when 

 irritated by it. We all distinctly remember the 

 above circumstances, and are quite certain that not 

 only did the young adders first crawl down their 



