182 BRITISH SERPENTS. 
asked him,‘ Have you ever seen adders swallow their 
young?’ He replied, ‘No; but I know that they do 
so.’ [ said, ‘Naturalists tell us they do not.’ He 
said, ‘My neighbour — told me distinctly that he 
had seen it, and I would believe him in the face of all 
the naturalists. He continued: ‘G—— told me that 
he had disturbed a viper with several young ones 
lying around it. When they saw him the old one 
opened her mouth, and the young ones wrigeled down 
her throat. G 
disabled the viper, and putting 
his foot on the body, pressed it gently, when the whole 
of the young ones came wrigeling from her mouth 
Now, I am aware that this is only a sample of what 
dozens of men tell us. But when I consider the char- 
acter of such men as this G—— (whom I knew well 
as a farmer and as a man above the average for intelli- 
gence and Iigh character) and those I have mentioned 
before, I can only arrive at one of two conclusions. 
Either adders swallow their young or a considerable 
number of persons of high repute have banded them- 
selves together into a conspiracy of falsehood. And 
this conspiracy appears to have been going on for gen- 
erations, and to have spread over the entire country. 
“Tean't help thinking that some of us poor country- 
folk are not quite the simple and ecredulous mortals 
we are sometimes represented to be. This is just a 
mild protest against the somewhat disdainful attitude 
of “seientific Ingwigs’ towards such country-folk as 
myself and many others.” 
