Billy McAskill grabbed the snake because he wanted to photograph it and was bitten on the thumb as it slipped away, The Scotsman reported. He stayed out with a shooting party because gamekeepers told him he had "nothing more than a scratch."

"I didn't think there were any poisonous snakes in the U.K., let alone Scotland," he said.

What he did not know was that the snake was an adder, a protected species in Britain and the only venomous species in most of Europe.

"By the time we got back to the bothy five hours later, I was feeling really bad and my hand had swollen up to about three times its normal size," he said.

McAskill spent a night in a hospital in Elgin and went home to Dundee to recuperate.

"That was my first time grouse beating and will definitely be my last -- not for 35 pounds ($70) a day, anyway," he said.