62 BRITISH SERPENTS. 



For some years now I have tried to note this point 

 in my own locality, with the result that the earliest 

 date on which I have seen an adder in the spring has 

 been on March 4. For three years in succession I 

 have failed to find one before May — one year as late 

 as May 16; but this is a sparsely populated district, 

 and one might easily fail to hear of the adders mov- 

 ing about for some time after they had finished their 

 hibernation, and still more easily fail to come across a 

 specimen. Considering that in the Monnow Valley 

 we frequently have an early spring, 1 am inclined to 

 think that the adders are not so late in making their 

 appearance as my earliest note of the fact would indi- 

 cate. I have never had the opportunity of comparing 

 the different species of snakes in the same district as 

 to their relative times of hibernating, as it so happens 

 that the adder is sole representative of the Ophidia in 

 that part of the country where I hibernate myself ; so 

 that I cannot express any opinion as to which of our 

 three snakes is the first to retire or the last to re- 

 appear. But it is obvious that such a comparison, to 

 be an accurate test of their respective habit in this 

 matter, must be made in a locality where all three 

 British snakes are found. It would be dangerous to 

 assume that because the adder retires in September in 

 one district, and the rinsj snake in October in another 

 locality, that therefore the adder's period of hiber- 

 nation is longer or begins sooner than that of the 

 ring snake. The degree of torpor exhibited by the 



