6 ; 
GRASS-SNAKES. 
Grass-snake, or Ringed-snake, unfortunately belongs 
I to a race which, as regards most of its members, 
I deserves extermination. Perhaps the creature is con- 
^ founded with the poisonous adder ; at any rate, every 
ignorant labourer tries to slaughter it, and most people loathe it. 
Some, however, have braved general opinion, surmounted other 
obstacles, and domesticated this reptile. Perhaps the snake is 
more naturally associated with southern than with our fitful skies; 
it certainly enjoys warmth, and disappears on cold days. When 
the sun of September loses power the snake retires into the bowels 
of the bank, or into some other recess, where it spends the winter in 
deep slumber, from which the warm weather at the end of April 
again rouses it. Then it may be seen basking on a sunny bank 
or heard in the dead stuff at the bottom of a hedge, where it 
makes a rustling like that of no other thing. It is scared by a 
person’s approach, and wriggles away so fast that, if you wish 
to catch it, you must not hesitate. It is then well to have ready 
a convenient bag. To carry in one’s hand a newly-caught snake 
is very unpleasant, because in its fright it emits such a horrid 
effluvium as would disgust any but ardent naturalists, and would, 
I venture to say, have left Tobit, had he tenanted a cottage in 
English fields, at no loss for a means, just as efficient as those 
he used, to scare away the evil spirit. 
Nor is the progress of domestication encouraging. The 
animal answers all advances with furious hisses and menacing 
gesticulations. Once a large grass snake flew at my hand, from 
which it drew just a speck of blood ; trifling as was the incision 
— too trifling to be felt — there can be little doubt that even this, 
made by some of the tribe, might have been followed by a serious 
illness. But in a few days your ward grows tranquil, gives over 
hissing, loses other offensiveness, and may be held in the hand 
while it twines its body round the fingers, at the same time 
darting in and out its tongue. 
We now have opportunity for closer examination. Certainly 
the animal’s appearance is showy. Such are many poisonous 
flowers. Might we not therefore doubt the grass-snake’s inno- 
cence ? Its body is completely clothed with scales, grey inclin- 
ing to tawny, which on the back are granular, but broader 
lower down, where they are met by polished semi-rings sheathing 
over one another, and usually mottled black and milky white, 
though they are sometimes uniformly black. Of these there are 
about one hundred and seventy. The back is not marked con- 
spicuously, and here seems to lie the difference by which this 
snake and the poisonous adder, or viper, may be most easily dis- 
tinguished ; for along the back of the viper there runs a zig-zag 
chain of black lozenges. Above the black flank-slits of the grass- 
