102 
NATURE STUDY. 
of migrants. Myrtle warblers, black-throated greens with young, 
the golden-winged and prairie warblers. And a warbler that I 
recognized through Chapman as the worm-eating warbler. This 
bird has been reported from Maine, but not from New Hamp¬ 
shire, so far as I know. By a small brook was a large flock of 
water thrushes walking about. This warbler is almost always 
walking on the ground, or wading the shallows of small streams. 
When walking about he has a habit of jerking his tail upward 
with every few steps, and when alighted on a fence or low limb 
of a tree is constantly teetering his body. 
In the study of the life and affairs of birds, nature’s loveliest 
creatures, one realizes with the late Frank Bolles that “ no life¬ 
time is long enough to learn all about even one bird.” 
A Much Maligned Reptile. 
BV WILLIAM H. HUSE. 
Heterodon platirhinos is the book name of a little animal that 
is variously known as deaf, hissing, puffing or spreading adder; 
blowing or sand viper. These names are either indicative of its 
appearance or suggestive of its habit of flattening itself when 
surprised and hissing by blowing forcibly through the small open¬ 
ing in the front of the jaws through which the tongue is extend¬ 
ed for purposes of investigation. As the breath is drawn in 
the noise is almost as great as when it is expelled. The spread¬ 
ing of the body makes it 
nearly twice as wide as it 
is naturally and renders 
it truly formidable in ap¬ 
pearance while the hissin g 
is quite startling. It has 
all the appearance of a 
puffing adder. dangerous reptile and it is 
no wonder that the popular mind has not ^.1^ c^lcu it veno- 
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