504 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
by the fact of this interesting southern race having been 
captured in the city.” 
The 1893 specimen is, I understand, the Ringed Snake 
which Professor Duns informs me was recently obtained in 
the garden of a friend of his at the Grange.!] 
VIPERA BERUS (Z.). THE ADDER. 
Fortunately, as the majority of people will no doubt think, 
the Adder or Viper—the only poisonous British reptile—is 
confined to the outskirts of our district, and even there it is 
very local, and far from common till we reach the highland 
country beyond Stirling on the one hand, or proceed well 
into the Lammermoors on the other. 
We may safely assume, I think, that in bygone days, when 
much of what is now under cultivation was wild heath and 
common, or natural eopsewood, the Adder would be much 
more generally distributed than at the present time. With 
the growth of population and the reclamation of the land, so 
noxious a creature would be bound to diminish in numbers, 
and finally disappear. 
Although I have not myself seen the Adder nearer to 
Edinburgh than the centre of the Lammermoor Hills, where 
I killed two a number of years ago on the banks of the 
Whitadder,? near Johnscleugh, in East Lothian, there can be 
no doubt, as I shall presently show, that it still exists in a 
few localities at the foot of the Pentlands, and also towards 
1 With the view of tracing the history of these Edinburgh snakes, I have, 
since the above article was put in type, sent a letter to the Scotsman on the 
subject, but without result, except to bring to light the occurrence of other 
two examples. On 22nd June, Mrs Tait, Broughton Point House, Broughton 
Road, informed me that a snake was seen on her lawn the previous day. At 
my suggestion Mr James Taylor, for whom snakes and other reptiles have 
more than an ordinary interest, at onee went in search of the animal, and 
succeeded in capturing it. Mr Eagle Clarke has examined this specimen, and 
tells me it belongs to the same southern European race ag the one ebtained 
at Haymarket in July 1892. From Mr Taylor, I learn that a typical example 
of the Ringed Snake was captured in a garden in Inverleith Row in July 
1893, and taken to him for identification. 
2 Originally the Whitewater, and therefore having no reference to the 
reptile. See the ‘Old Statistical Account,” where the name is also spelt 
Whitatter. wa 
