The Zoologist— May, 1869. 1653 



common female snake having been found in hot-beds covering her 

 eggs with her body, have taught us greater caution in the building of 

 hypotheses on the absence of observed fact : it is a parallel case to 

 the erection of houses without foundations. 



The Lizahd Snake {Coluber austriacus). 

 The Smooth Snake. 

 Coluber austriacus, Buon. Fauna Italica, with figure. 

 Coronella Isevis, Schinz, vol. ii,, p. 45. 



The teeth of the Lizard Snake are slender and pointed, and slant 

 backwards ; the eyes are small ; the body is cylindrical, the neck not 

 being distinct, the head seeming more closely united with the body 

 than in the common snake ; the tail is short and stout ; the dorsal 

 scutes are arranged in nineteen series, and are entirely without keels; 

 the ventral scutes are one hundred and sixty-two in number, and the 

 subcaudal scutes in the specimen I have counted are sixty-two pairs. 

 The colour of the back is olive-brown with two parallel rows of black 

 spots, which vary in size and intensity in different individuals : those 

 nearest the tail are invariably smaller and less distinct. In some 

 specimens the spots are scarcely distinguishable; in others they are 

 bright, distinct, and ornamental. 



Like the Common Snake, the Lizard Snake varies considerably iu 

 size : the discrepancy, as in that species, is in all probability 

 dependant on age and sex : it is, however, decidedly less than the 

 Common Snake — the female, which is invariably larger than the male, 

 rarely attains a length of two feet. 



The food of the Lizard Snake consists almost entirely of the Sand 

 Lizard {Lacerta Slirpium), but there is excellent evidence that the 

 Common Lizard {Lacerta agilis) may be included in its bill of fare, 

 when the two reptiles occur in the same locality ; indeed, some of the 

 records are so obscurely worded as to leave it doubtful which 

 species of lizard is intended : there is also a well-authenticated 

 instance of the Lizard Snake having, when in confinement, devoured 

 a Blind-worm. 



We are indebted to Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, for first 

 identifying this snake as the Coluber austriacus of Continental authors : 

 it is, nevertheless, open to considerable doubt whether a young indi- 

 vidual had not been previously described by Mr. Sowerby, in his 

 ' British Miscellany,' as a species new to Britain, and figured in the 



