1C3 



knd where these abound Mr. Buckland recommends an active search to be mad'^ 

 Jor the Coronella ; and he also goes on to say: ""WTiite believes there are 

 two species of poisonous snakes, vipers, and adders. I cannot make up my mind 

 whether the little red spiteful viper is the young of the common viper, or, in 

 fact, whether vipers and adders are identically the same species, or merely 

 varieties altered by local circumstances. The red-coloured chocolate-Uke viper 

 of Scotland is certainly a different looking beast externally to the green-tea- 

 coloured viper of the south of England." 



In a recent number of " Land and Water," is a letter from Mr. Penney, 

 of Poole, detaUing the capture of several CoroneUas by Mr. Wilcox, Mr. F. H. 

 Peck, himself, and his son, and Mr. Penney gives the following very interesting 

 extract from Mr. Peck's journal : — 



"Sept. 4th, 1868.— Caught a very fine Coronella lavis. I was running 

 down a steep narrow path in one of the chines between Poole and Boiirne- 

 mouth, close to a round tower on the cliff, when I saw a large snake right across 

 my path. I stopped as soon as I could, and ran back. The snake was just 

 entering the heath. I put my umbrella across him, as he looked suspiciously 

 like a viper. At first I was rather afraid to handle it, but having read an 

 account of this new snake a few days before in the Intellectual Observer, I 

 knew the markings, and making out the crown-like mark on this one's head, and 

 the double row of round dark sjwts down its back, I felt a desire to make a 

 closer acquaintance with him, so took him up in my hand. He did not seem to 

 like it, and bit me most savagely several times. The teeth were very sharp and 

 smaU. It held quite firmly to my finger, but did not draw blood." — Mr. 

 Penney and Mr. Peck then carefxiUy examined it, and having ascertained it to 

 be the true Coronella laris, it was sent to the Zoological Gardens. Mr. Penney 



then says, " I caught another soon after, but let it go again 



The Coronella la:vis is far more pugilistic than the common ringed snake. I 

 found another Coronella asleep under a bush, not coiled up, but tied in a knot. 

 I watched it a few minutes. It was all aUve then, and I had hard work to 

 hold it. It emitted a fluid with a disagreeable odour like the common snake. I 

 never noticed this in the viper ;" and he adds afterwards that " the Coronella 

 [(Fvis is qxute as, if not more common, than the viper on our sand-banks and 

 neighbouring heaths," and he has no doubt but that it has existed for years on 

 the Poole heaths without being detected by the naturalists." 



Dr. Bull said his little friend certainly gave out a most horrible stench, 

 as many of them had proved. He had himself only killed one large Viper, and 

 that was a female, who was basking in the sun on some stones in the forest of 

 Fontainbleau. On opening the body, he took out sixteen eggs attached to each 

 other, as if strung together, each one containing an embryo snake half grown* 



He then proceeded to read 

 T 2 



