Page:Omniana 2.djvu/196

 habit seems to be proved by the foregoing passage, and by the following extract from one of our newspapers, of the year 1810.

"Friday last, some boys at play near the Hoop public house, on Hampstead Heath, discovered a number of large adders wreathed together in a knot, and basking in the sun shine under a hedge. The boys attacked them with stones, and the reptiles quickly disentwined themselves, and made battle for some time, by hissing at their assailants; one, more bold than the rest, advanced towards one of the boys, who fortunately killed it with a stone; it measured above four feet in length, and had several frogs in its belly."

 

A curious collection might be made of the mistranslations in our language, not those which have grown out of an idiomatic expression, like La derniere chemise de l'amour, for love's last shift,