274 Wild Life in a Southern County 



found the slough in it. There was an old wall, very low 

 and somewhat ruinous, much overgrown with barley-like 

 grasses, where I found a slough several times in succession, 

 as if it had been a favourite resort for the purpose. The 

 slough is a pale colour— there is no trace on it of the 

 snake's natural hue, and it has when fresh an appearance as 

 if varnished — meaning not the brown colour of varnish, but 

 the smoothness. A thin transparent film represents the eyes, 

 so that the country folk say the snake skins his own eyes. 



A forked stick is the best thing to catch a snake with ; 

 the fork pins the head to the ground without doing any 

 injury. If held up by the tail — that is the way the 

 country lads carry them — the snake will not let its head 

 hang down, but holds it up as far as possible : he does not, 

 however, seem able to crawl up himself, so to say ; he is 

 helpless in that position. If he is allowed to touch the 

 arm he immediately coils round it. A snake is sometimes 

 found on the roofs of cottages. The roof in such cases is 

 low, and connected by a mass of ivy with the ground, 

 overgrown too with moss and weeds. 



The mowers, who sleep a good deal under the hedges, 

 have a tradition that a snake will sometimes crawl down a 

 man's throat if he sleeps on the ground with his mouth 

 open. There is also a superstition among the haymakers 

 of snakes having been bred in the stomachs of human 

 beings, from drinking out of ponds or streams frequented 

 by water snakes. Such snakes — green, and in every re- 

 spect like the field snake — have, according to them, been 

 vomited by the unfortunate persons afflicted with this 

 strange calamity. It is curious to note in connection with 

 this superstition the ignorance of the real habits of these 

 creatures exhibited by people whose whole lives are spent 

 in the fields and by the hedges. 



