The erroneous opinion that all serpents are venomous is one that most probably originated with those who live in districts frequented only by the adder or viper; but it ought not to be entertained even by the most ignorant of the peasantry where the common snake is abundant, as it is in most parts of England. There every one ought to know that the latter is harmless, and that it is easily distinguished from the viper, which is poisonous. Curiously, too, the blind-worm or slow-worm, which, although not now ranked by naturalists among true serpents, but among the lizards, agrees with serpents in general appearance, and is in many places regarded with the utmost dread, being popularly believed to be as venomous as the viper itself. This is the case equally where it is common, as it is in many parts of England, and in Scotland where it is rare and found in comparatively few localities. 'During the summer of 1876,' says the Rev. J. G. Wood in his _Illustrated Natural History_, 'I passed some little time in the New Forest, and having gone round to the farms in the neighbourhood, begged to have all reptiles brought to me that were discovered during hay-making. In consequence, the supply of vipers and snakes was very large; and on one occasion a labourer came to my house bare-headed, his red face beaming with delight, and his manner evincing a consciousness of deserving valour. Between his hands he held his felt hat tightly crimpled together, and within the hat was discovered, after much careful manoeuvring, the head of a blind-worm emerging from one of its folds. As I put out my hand to remove the creature, the man fairly screamed with horror; and even when I took it in my hand, and allowed it to play its tongue over the fingers, he could not believe that it was not poisonous. No argument could persuade that worthy man that the reptile was harmless, and nothing could induce him to lay a finger upon it; the prominent idea in his mind being evidently, not that the blind-worm had no poison, but that I was poison-proof.'
Similar to the popular opinion as to the blind-worm is that concerning the little active slender lizard common in moors, and that concerning the eft or newt, both of which are deemed extremely venomous, dangerous animals, whilst in reality both are quite harmless. We do not know how far the error as to the lizard prevails in England, but it is certainly very generally prevalent in Scotland, almost every rustic dreading what he calls an _ask_, that is a lizard, nearly as much as an adder. And a similar belief, equally erroneous, prevails in France as to another species of lizard. As to the newt, the prejudice against it exists everywhere, both in England and in Scotland, but it appears in its most exaggerated form where the state of education is lowest. 'During a residence of some years in a small village in Wiltshire,' says Mr Wood, in the work from which we have already quoted, 'I was told some very odd stories about the newt, and my own power of handling these terrible creatures without injury was evidently thought rather supernatural. Poison was the least of its crimes; for it was a general opinion among the rustics in charge of the farmyard, that my poor newts killed a calf at one end of a farmyard, through the mediumship of its mother, who saw them in a water-trough at the other end; and that one of these creatures bit a man on his thumb as he was cutting grass in the churchyard, and inflicted great damage on that member. The worst charge, however, was one which I heard from the same person. A woman, he told me, had gone to the brook to draw water, when an _effert_, as he called it, jumped out of the water, fastened on her arm, bit out a piece of flesh and spat fire into the wound, so that she afterwards lost her arm!'