REPTILES 

 AND BATRACHIANS 



Four species only of reptiles and five of batrachians can with certainty 

 be enumerated for this county. Of the former all have apparently de- 

 creased in number during the last century, especially the latter half of 

 it ; three in particular, the common ringed snake, viper and slow-worm, 

 being no longer found in many of their former haunts. The face of the 

 country has undergone such changes through a higher system of cultiva- 

 tion, enclosure of wastes, drainage and other causes, that much of it has 

 become unfitted for the requirements of these creatures. On the other 

 hand, the shelter provided by numerous railway cuttings and embank- 

 ments may, it is to be hoped, serve to retard, and perhaps prevent, the 

 utter extermination of these and other persecuted members of the British 

 fauna. 



As regards batrachians, the natterjack {Bufo calatnita) is found in 

 several places near the coast. The Norfolk and Cambridgeshire colonics 

 of the edible frog [Rana esculenta) do not appear to have spread into 

 this county. A single specimen, doubtless an escaped one, was found in 

 a garden at Felixstowe in August 1882 (see note by A. B. R. Battye, 

 Zoologist, 1883, p. 226). Several of these frogs brought from Normandy 

 were turned out at Blaxhall in 1882, and a further supply, obtained 

 from London, in 1892 ; but owing to improper packing a large number 

 died. A few were seen and heard through the summers of 1893 and 

 1894, and one, in the adjoining parish of Farnham, in 1895, since which 

 time none have been observed. 



The palmated newt {Molge paimata) has not, as far as I am aware, 

 been met with in this county, but as it has been found both in Nor- 

 folk and Essex it seems not unlikely that its presence may eventually be 

 detected. 



Eleven examples of the European water tortoise {Emys lutaria) 

 were placed in a pond at Blaxhall in 1889, but most of them soon 

 wandered away in different directions. During the three following 

 years specimens were from time to time found about the village, and 

 in 1894 two were discovered in a marsh ditch about a quarter of a mile 

 off, another in the river (Aide) at about the same distance in an oppo- 

 site direction, and a third in a ditch at Iken Cliff, more than two miles 

 off. During the years 1894 and 1895 forty-nine of these tortoises were 

 turned into ditches and ponds at Blaxhall. A few were at the same 

 time liberated in some water adjoining a garden at Little Glemham. 



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