THE ADDER. 83 
winter quarters to hand. A place of this sort is 
adapted to the retiring disposition of the adder, for it 
is, of all animals, perhaps the shyest and most timid. 
An adder will invariably slip away unperceived if 
possible, and only when absolutely cornered will it 
show anything like a fighting attitude. Hence it lies 
just on the edge of the cut fern or wood, ready to slip 
under cover at the slightest approach of any noise. If 
the reptile can be traced into the fern, it is probably 
found that it goes down one of the runs made by the 
mice or moles, which run just an inch or two below 
the surface, covered only by the dead leaves and the 
last year’s fern. I had a most exciting chase after an 
adder in a run of this sort this summer. I saw the 
adder lying on the edee of the fern where I had seen 
it on a previous occasion, but though I crept up as 
quietly as I could, it disappeared into the fern, which 
was about 3 feet high. I dashed after it, and push- 
ing the fern aside was just in time to see its tail 
vanishing down one of these runs. In went my stick, 
and I tore up the run as fast as [ could, but not quite 
so fast as the adder went on. Twice I got an irritating 
climpse of the tail disappearing, and the pursuit went 
on for some 5 or 6 yards of that run. Then, to my 
diseust, the run branched into two, and I must have 
taken the wrong one, for I saw that adder no more. 
Rabbit - holes, too, are favourite places of refuge. 
Their retreats in the winter we have spoken of when 
discussing hibernation, 
