THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
78 
Stingeth Like an Adder. 
BY WILLIAM H. HUSE, MANCHESTER, N. H. 
The adder is the only venomous 
snake in England. Its bite is a more 
or less serious matter, but it is incapa- 
ble of stinging. The earliest mention 
of its ability to emulate the bees and 
their relatives is probably in Proverbs 
in the advice to abstain from wine for 
“at the last it biteth like a serpent, and 
stingeth like an adder.” Marginal notes 
in some editions of the Bible give 
“basilisk” as the Plebrew word trans- 
lated “adder.” The Douay version ad- 
heres more closely to the original and 
has “will spread abroad poison like a 
basilisk.” It is presumed that when the 
English revisers of King James’s time 
came to the passage they feared that the 
basilisk threat would be lost on the 
English inebriate and so used the name 
of the only poisonous reptile on the 
island. 
The English settlers in New England 
gave the name of adder to at least three 
snakes that they found there, presum- 
ably because their mottled appearance 
suggested the reptile across the sea. 
They could reason and naturally con- 
cluded that as the English adder was 
poisonous these must be. Furthermore 
the adder could sting and therefore 
these must be endowed with the same 
power. So the misinformation has come 
down through the generations. I was 
informed when a boy that the milk 
snake, the water snake and the spread- 
ing adder ( Heterodon platirhinos ) were 
all poisonous, and that the last was 
possessed of a deadly poisonous breath. 
Fortunately I have learned better. 
It is surprising to see how general 
the superstition still is. Boys catch 
snakes to take out their “stingers” if 
they do not actually kill them. Some 
locate the stinger in the tongue and 
some in the tail. Recently an intelli- 
gent man told me of seeing a snake 
strike a board with its tail and with 
such force that it punctured the wood 
and enabled a spectator to lift both 
board and snake. The wonderful event 
occurred when he was a boy, so that 
imagination or forgetfulness would 
doubtless explain the phenomenon. 
Not long ago a local paper printed 
the following: 
AUTUMN. 
By A. R. Harper, Columbus, Ohio. 
The jay with weird cry heralds fall, 
Along the road the glowing plumes of goldenrod 
Blend with the aster’s violet hue, 
And ’mid their fading foliage nod. 
A soft grey haze hangs over all, 
The brook is choked with dying leaves ; 
The robins wing to roost in drifting flocks, 
And swallows sit in chattering rows along the eaves. 
The corn is stacked in marshaled rows, 
With golden pumpkins in between. 
On every side, from bulging cribs, 
The harvest’s plenty may be seen. 
And as the shadows longer grow, 
The earth is resting, half asleep, 
Content to dream of labors past, 
While men her golden harvest reap. 
So may I, when I come to pass 
Those last few hours in the afterglow, 
Find the fruits of my labor good to see, 
And in peace watch the shadows grow. 
