148 Zoology. 



that we not unfrequently hear of water snakes, the vulgar error being that 

 there is in this country a distinct species which frequents that element. A 

 friend of mine, walking by the side of a pit, once surprised a large snake, 

 which, on being alarmed, immediately took to the water ; though in so 

 doing, with a view to avoid a perhaps imaginary danger, he incurred a real 

 one : for the reptile had not proceeded far in his watery excursion when a 

 pike was observed to strike at and seize him, and no doubt devoured him, 

 as he was seen no more. That snakes also are ready to make reprisals, 

 and prey upon fish, I am induced to believe from the circumstance of 

 having once myself seen a small snake taken out of the water, with a young 

 pike scarce half swallowed in his throat, the larger portion of the fish pro- 

 truding out of the snake's mouth. Both the animals were dead ; the snake, 

 it would appear, having been choked in consequence of the size of the fish, 

 which was evidently too large to admit of being swallowed. In the fore- 

 going remarks I confine myself entirely to the common species. Coluber 

 iV'atrix. I am. Sir, &c.— W. T. Bree. AUesley Rectory, Sept. 20. 1830: 



Voice of Fishes. — We can scarcely deny this faculty to fish. In addition 

 to what Mr. Thompson has remarked (Vol. III. p. 147.), I may observe, 

 that, when the herring is just caught in the net, and brought into the boat, it 

 utters a shrill cry like a mouse ; and I have often heard the long-continued 

 " grunting," or croaking, of the gurnard after being freed from the hook. — 

 J. Murray. Carviarthcn , Ajjril 2. 1830. 



Foreign Insects. — Every entomologist must hail with pleasure the indi- 

 cations of the spread of his favourite science, afforded by the great increase 

 of Continental insect collectors within these few years. On a late excur- 

 sion to the celebrated Valley of Chamouni, on entering the apartment of two 

 young entomologists my companions, soon after our arrival, I was not a 

 little surprised to find them surrounded with a levee of six Savoyard boys, 

 fi-om the age of fifteen down to that of eight, each with a large collecting- 

 box fullof insects in his hands, and bargains for rare Alpine butterflies and 

 moths rapidly going on. What I could not at first comprehend was, how 

 the seller and buyer had so soon got scent of each other ; but, on enquiry, 

 the former explained the mystery by saying that they had introduced them- 

 selves to the young messieurs, knowing, from the insect nets which they 

 saw taken out of the carriage, that they must be papillonists. These boy& 

 sell in the course of the year many thousand insects, partly to strangers and 

 partly to more considerable insect dealers of maturer age on the spot, with 

 three of whom we subsequently made acquaintance, and purchased many 

 rarities from them. One of these insect dealers on a larger scale, whom 

 we had previously met with on our journey from Italy, Michel Bossonney, 

 at Martigni in the Vallais, told us that he last year sold 7000 insects. It 

 is needless to point out the advantages of this new traific, both to the indi- 

 viduals engaged in it and to the science in every way. .Sphinx (Deilephila) 

 hippophaes, formerly sold at 60 francs each, and of which one of the first- 

 discovered specimens was sold for 200 francs, is now so plentiful, in con- 

 sequence of the numbers collected and bred by the peasants all along the 

 course of the Arve, where /fippophae rhamnoides grows in profusion, that 

 a specimen costs but 3 francs : and a general taste for the science is spread 

 by the more striking Alpine species, such as Parnassius Apollo and Cali- 

 chroma alpina, whicii are often bought for their beauty by travellers who 

 have before hardly deigned to look at an insect. 



The above reuiarks may serve as an introduction to a list which I send, 

 for your Magazine, of some of the more interesting species of Lepidoptera, 

 which can be furnished by M. Prevost Duval of Geneva, a highly respect- 

 able entomologist, who also sells insects ; whose insects, as to beauty and 

 preparation of the specimens, especially of the minute Tineae and Tortrices, 

 ^pd smaller Coleoptera, are the ne plus ultra of perfection ; and whom I can: 



