Wild Life in a Southern County

by Richard Jefferies

In the summer some of them appear of great thickness—almost as big round as the wrist. These are the females, and are about to deposit their eggs. They may usually be noticed close to cow-yards. The cattle in summer graze in the fields and the sheds are empty; but there are large manure-heaps overgrown with weeds, and in these the snakes’ eggs are left. Rabbits are fond of visiting these cow-yards—many of which are at a distance from the farmstead—and sometimes bring forth a litter there.

When the mowers have laid the tall grass in swathes snakes are often found on them or under them by the haymakers, whose prongs or forks throw the grass about to expose a large surface to the sun. The haymakers kill them without mercy, and numbers thus meet with their fate. They vary very much in size—from eighteen inches to three feet in length. I have seen specimens which could not have been less than four feet long, and as thick as a rake-handle. That would be an exceptional case, but not; altogether rare. The labourers will tell you of much larger snakes, but I never saw one.

There is no subject, indeed, upon which they make such extraordinary statements, evidently believing what they say, as about snakes. A man told me once that he had been pursued by a snake, which rushed after him at such a speed that he could barely escape; the snake not only glided but actually leaped over the ground. Now this must have been pure imagination: he fancied he saw an adder, and fled, and in his terror thought himself pursued. They constantly state that they have seen adders; but I am confident that no viper exists in this district, nor for some miles round. That they do elsewhere of course is well known, but not here; neither is the slow-worm ever seen.

The belief that snakes can jump—or coil themselves up and spring—is, however, very prevalent. They all tell you that a snake can leap across a ditch. This is not true. A snake, if alarmed, will make for the hedge; and he glides much faster than would be supposed. On reaching the ‘shore’ or edge of the ditch he projects his head over it, and some six or eight inches of the neck, while the rest of the body slides down the slope. If it happens to be a steep-sided ditch he often loses his balance and rolls to the bottom; and that is what has been mistaken for leaping. As he rises up the mound he follows a zigzag course, and presently enters some small hole or a cavity in a decaying stole. After creeping in some distance he often meets with an obstruction, and has to remain half in and half out till he can force his way. He usually takes possession of a mouse-hole, and does not seem to be able to enlarge it for additional convenience. If you put your stick on his head as he slips through the grass his body rolls and twists, and almost ties itself in a knot.

I have never been able to find a snake in the actual process of divesting his body of the old skin, but have several times disturbed them from a bunch of grass and 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 respect 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.

Now and then a peculiar squealing sound may be heard proceeding from the grass; on looking about it is found to be made by a frog in the extremity of mortal terror. A snake has seized one of his hind legs and has already swallowed a large part of it. The frog struggles and squeals, but it is in vain; the snake, if once he takes hold, will gradually get him down. I have several times released frogs from this horrible position; they hop off apparently unhurt if only the leg has been swallowed. But on one occasion I found a frog quite half gone down the throat of its dread persecutor: I compelled the snake to disgorge it, but the frog died soon afterwards. The frog being a broad creature, wide across the back—at least twice the width of the snake—it appears surprising how the snake can absorb so large a thing.

In the nesting season snakes are the terror of those birds that build in low bushes. I have never seen a snake in a tree (though I have heard of their getting up trees), but I have seen them in hawthorn bushes several feet from the ground, and apparently proceeding along the boughs with ease. I once found one in a bird’s nest: the nest was empty—the snake had doubtless had a feast, and was enjoying deglutition. In some places where snakes are numerous, boys when bird’s-nesting always give the nest a gentle thrust with a stick first before putting the hand in, lest they should grasp a snake instead of eggs. The snake is also accused of breaking and sucking eggs—some say it is the hard-set eggs he prefers; whether that be so or no, eggs are certainly often found broken and the yolk gone. When the young fledglings fall out of the nest on to the ground they run great risk from snakes.

When sitting in a punt in summer, moored a hundred yards or more from shore, I have often watched a snake swim across the lake, in that place about 300 yards wide. In the distance all that is visible is a small black spot moving steadily over the water. This is the snake’s head, which he holds above the surface, and which vibrates a little from side to side with the exertions of the muscular body. As he comes nearer a slight swell undulates on each side, marking his progress. Snakes never seem to venture so far from shore except when it is perfectly calm. The movement of the body is exactly the same as on land—the snake glides over the surface, the bends of its body seeming to act like a screw. They go at a good pace, and with the greatest apparent ease. In walking beside the meadow brooks, not everywhere, but in localities where these reptiles are common, every now and then you may see a snake strike off from the shore and swim across, twining in and out the stems of the green flags till he reaches the aquatic grass on the mud and disappears among it.