I had a similar experience to John Leonard's several years ago. Walking
along a track, my right foot about to come down on a small unidentified
snake, next thing I knew my left foot had come down in the position it
would normally have done without my right foot ever having touched
anything but air. Only then did I see the snake.
As John says, 'instinct is a funny thing', unfortunately, most people's
instinct is to then kill the snake, (or spider, wasp or shark) whereupon
the joke becomes a sick one.
Paul Osborn
> ----------
> From: :
> Sent: Thursday, 4 December 1997 10:11
> To:
> Subject: humans' response to danger
>
> Instinct is a funny thing.
>
> About ten years ago in Norfolk, UK. I was walking along a narrow track
> across some boggy heathland. I was walking briskly and was just about
> to
> place my next footstep down when I unaccountably reared backwards,
> jumped
> six feet in the air, turned in mid-air (somehow) and (somehow) leapt
> about
> ten feet back up the track, landing with my heart pounding and my hair
> standing on end. It was only then that I became conciously of the
> adder
> (Britain's only poisonous snake), which I had been just about to tread
> on,
> gliding off the path and hissing angrily.
>
>
>
>
> #############################################
>
> John Leonard (Dr),
> PO Box 243,
> Woden, ACT 2606
>
> 'OCEAN, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds
> of a world made for man-who has no gills.'
> Ambrose Bierce
>
>
> http://www.spirit.net.au/~jleonard
> #############################################
>
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