Reptiles and Batrachians of the Edinburgh District. 505 
the Moorfoot Hills. But its numbers must be very limited, 
for I have wandered a great deal all over that ground during 
the last thirty years without seeing the trace of one; and as 
the result of numerous inquiries on the subject, the following 
is all the information I have been able to obtain. 
As regards the eastern portion of the Pentlands, I have 
entirely failed to hear of a single example,—several keepers, 
with long experience of the ground, declaring they never 
knew of one being seen there. On the moors adjoining the 
western parts, however, I have been able to trace them on 
both sides of the range. Taking the north side first, Mr 
Thomas Gray, farmer, Braidwood, Temple, informs me that 
in his young days they were not uncommon in certain 
localities in the southern or moorland portion of Midcalder 
parish. Crosswoodhill Moss was a favourite habitat, and he 
well remembers his brother killing two at a shot there one 
sunny day in March sometime during the “forties.” He 
also remembers two sheep being “stung or bitten at 
Harper-rig: “their heads swelled to an enormous extent; 
they both died.” From Mr Campbell, Dalmeny Park, I 
have some interesting adder stories which were current in 
this locality about half a century ago. On one occasion, at 
Middlerig, above Kirknewton, a calf was said to have been 
bitten on the tongue, which “hung out of its mouth all 
black and swollen, and caused its death in a few days.” 
Belief in “ Adder-stones,” Mr Campbell tells me, was 
common. These were said to be flat stones with a holein | 
the centre, through which the adders glided to take off their 
skins ! 
Coming down to a much more recent date, Mr James 
Gray, farmer, Harper-rig, writes me that the last he saw 
there was during the warm summer of 1887. Another, 
which was supposed to have caused the death of a valuable 
ram, was seen by one of the farm labourers the same year. 
In the same neighbourhood a third was killed in April 1887 
on the farm of Harburnhead by Mr Hutson, then shepherd 
there, by whom many others had been seen on the same 
ground (a moss between Harburnhead and Cobbinshaw) 
during the previous twenty years; and Mr Dunbar, 
