Home gardener Vernon Smith narrowly avoided a nasty sting when he tried to pick some parsley on Tuesday.

Mr. Smith who lives in Somerset brought in a six inch centipede that he plucked by the tail as it poised to sting him.

"I was picking parsley in my garden and was just about to reach in and cut some more when I saw it," he said. " It was underneath the parsley leaves with its tail up in the air ready to sting. I just reached down and picked it up by the tail so it couldn't sting me."

Mr. Smith, a long-time gardener familiar with local flora, fauna and the like, explained why he had taken the arthropod by the tail and not the head. "I had to pick him up from the tail, if I had him by the head he would have flipped up his tail and stung me."

After catching the centipede, Mr. Smith put it in a bottle and covered it with alcohol.

"I hope the venom will dissolve in the alcohol so that I can use it to help if someone gets a sting in the future," he said.

"The old timers use to use it that way, just rubbing a bit of the alcohol solution on the area of the sting."