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22 BRITISH SERPENTS. 
“A neighbour who lives by tells me that he was 
riding a bicycle last summer through Dane Court 
erounds when he saw an adder crossing the road in 
front of him, and thinking he could break its back 
by riding over it, he steered straight for it, When just 
as he thought he had got it, the adder suddenly 
reared itself up on its tail, and he missed it in con- 
sequence. The adder’s head was raised up quite 
close to the calf of his leg as he rode by.’-—W. 
fo 
Jacob, Eythorne, Dover. 
What the Archbishop saw.—‘ Even the closest 
observers of snakes are apt at times to be mistaken. 
For instance, I findin the Life of the late Archbishop 
of Canterbury (vol. i. p. 22) that on one occasion ‘he 
was returning alone from the village, and in the dust 
of the road, on the bridge which crossed the stream, 
he saw a thine which looked lke a snake, with ob- 
jects like small wheels on its head, that were running 
round and round at a furious rate, so that the dust 
flew up in clouds. He was much too frightened to 
examine it, but ran home and told his mother. He 
was sent to substantiate his story—to look for the 
object and bring it home; but it was gone, and he was 
whipped for telling a he. “Yet I can see it still,” he 
used to say, “as it lay there;”’ and in later life I 
have met with few people who knew more about the 
natural history of Berkshire than he did.’—J. L. Bevir, 
M.A., letter to the ‘ Outlook, November 10, 1900. 
