The Zoologist— May, 1869. 1651 



crawls over my hands, indicates a movement of the ribs and not of 

 the scutes : snakes have neither external ears nor eyelids. We have 

 in Britain three species belonging to two families. 



Family Colubrid.e. 



Have no poison-fangs either grooved or tubular: they are conse- 

 quently innocuous. 



The Common Snake {Coluber Natrix.) 

 Ringed Snate ; Grass Snake ; Frog Snake. 

 Coluber Natrix, Schinz, vol.ii., p. 38 ; Clermont, Quadrupeds 

 and Reptiles of Europe, p. 220. 



Natrix torquata, Bell, Reptiles, p. 49. 



The teeth are sharp-pointed and slant backwards, thus rendering 

 the escape of an animal that has been seized extremely difficult: the 

 gape extends to the back of the head, the tongue is divided to a third 

 of its length, the two divisions being sharp-pointed; the head is 

 wide behind and flattened on the crown ; the neck is restricted, and 

 the division between head and body is thus distinctly marked ; the 

 body is very long, and very gradually tapering to the extremity of the 

 tail, which is slender; the scutes on the back have a distinct 

 longitudinal keel: the ventral scutes are about one hundred and 

 seventy, the caudal ones fifty-flVe to sixty-five pairs. 



Snakes vary greatly in size, but I think chiefly in accordance with 

 age and sex. The female, which is usually much larger than the male, 

 sometimes — although rarely — attaining a length of four feet ; the 

 male, when full grown, measures above two feet and a half in length. 



The favorite food of snakes is the common frog, which is pursued 

 with an activity and certainty of success that is almost painful to con- 

 template. The frog seems perfectly awai-e of the first approach of the 

 snake, and leaps with great vigour to the right and left, uttering at the 

 same time a most piteous squeal or squeak : by degrees the spasmodic 

 leaps become shorter and shorter, and at last the victim abandons itself 

 helplessly and hopelessly to its impending fate. I have often, when a 

 school-boy, produced every demonstration of this abject terror by 

 wriggling a long stick through the uncut grass. Mr. Bell says, the 

 manner in which the snake takes its prey is very curious. " If it be a 

 frog it generally seizes it by the hinder leg, because it is generally 

 taken in pursuit. As soon as this lakes place, the frog, in most 



