320 BRITISH SERPENTS. 



less ground left for them to inhabit. Zootica vivipara 

 can continue long after the ring snake and the adder 

 have gone. In the Trent Level the adder is found on 

 the sandhills and the ring snake on the intermediate 

 peaty soils, or rather this was the case until our 

 commons became very restricted in area. Scores of 

 intelligent and truthful labouring men have told me 

 incidents of the adder swallowing the young. In one 

 case the number of young mentioned was eleven. I 

 have no experience on the point, and therefore no 

 opinion. I greatly doubt having seen an adder of 18 

 inches long in the county." — Eev. Ed. Adrian Wood- 

 ruffe-Peacock, F.L.S., F.G.S., Vicar of Cadney, Brigg. 



" The ring snake turns up now and again in all 

 parts of the county, but I have seen it plentifully, 

 especially on Scotton Common and Blyton Carrs. A 

 friend living near these localities writes to me, ' One 

 sunny morning in early spring the ring snakes were 

 lying on a hedge-bank in scores — the place was alive 

 with them.' The average length of this snake here is 

 about 3 feet or slightly over. 



" The adder occurs not unusually on Scotton Com- 

 mon, and the same writer says, ' I should consider it 

 plentiful ; and on one of my rambles I brought one 

 home and placed it in a box with a sheet of glass over 

 it for observation. Next day I was much surprised to 

 find four young ones with it. Somehow or other one 

 of them made its escape. On the following spring I 

 was moving some stones near the greenhouse flue, and 



