THE RING SNAKE. 31 



asking him for the facts of the matter as they had 

 come under his notice, and asking him if possible to 

 send me one of the snakes for identification. He very 

 kindly wrote me an account of what he knew, and at 

 the same time put me into communication with one 

 of the residents of the houses concerned, and to these 

 two gentlemen I am indebted for the following details 

 of the locality. It seems, then, that the house in 

 question is situated in a row of eighteen, called 

 Cefncaeau Eow, some two miles from Llanelly. The 

 row faces north, the road runs at the front doors, the 

 gardens of the houses being across the road. Beyond 

 the gardens is a field in which is an old quarry, called 

 Cae Cefn quarry. The distance from the quarry to the 

 front of the row is 300 yards. At the back of the 

 row is a stubble-field, the level of which is above that 

 of the ground-floor of the houses. There are no back- 

 doors to the houses, the back walls of which are only 

 separated from the field by an open drain, which 

 carries off the water. Each house has a small back- 

 window looking on to this field, some of these windows 

 being made to open, others not. Each house consists 

 of two rooms below and one long room above. In the 

 second field at the back is an old disused coal-pit, now 

 filled, and which has not been worked for a hundred 

 years or so. This is '200 yards from the back wall. 

 Fields bound the row at one end, the other end open- 

 ing into the turnpike road which leads from Llanelly 

 to Swansea. A glance at the plan appended will 



