THE SMALL RED VIPER. 209 



is a matter of some considerable difficulty to determine 

 its exact distribution. F. G. Arlalo 1 mentions that it 

 is found in Herts, Somerset, and Devon, also in parts 

 of Scotland, and these three counties are usually the 

 ones mentioned in this connection. He also refers to 

 the capture of " a small reel kind " in Fairlight Glen, 

 near Hastings, in further reference to which he writes 

 to me : — 



" I wish I could give you the accurate information 

 you seek touching those Fairlight red adders, which I 

 distinctly remember killing on two or three occasions, 

 some twenty years ago. But I did not in those days 

 — it must have been during the period 1881-1883, 

 during which I lived at Hastings — see any particular 

 interest in a snake beyond its power of dying pictur- 

 esquely, and all I can recall is the decided reddish hue 

 of some of the adders {not all, mind) that we found 

 thereabouts, and the belief among the villagers in the 

 neighbourhood of Fairlight and Ecclesbourne that 

 these red adders were more dangerous than those 

 of normal colour. More than this memory does not 

 spare me." 



The Eev. H. A. Macpherson, in his ' Fauna of Lake- 

 land,' records the occurrence of a specimen thus : — 



" Most of the Lakeland vipers are grey or brown 

 in ground colour, regardless of their sex. The only 

 instance at present known to me of the capture of a 

 ' red ' individual within our limits relates to a viper 



1 Natural History (Vertebrates) of the British Islands, p. 304. 



O 



