8 Natural History. 



October, 1864, I was surprised to find in it a common slow- 

 worm {Anguis fragilis) which measured eight inches in length. 

 It was not quite perfect, having lost the tip of the tail ; other- 

 wise, if whole, it would probably have measured nine inches." 



In October, 1888, Mr. J. B. Footner, of Tunbridge Wells, 

 forwarded to me" three young vipers that were found with 

 five others of equal size in the crop of a three parts grown 

 hen pheasant, which he himself shot as a wild bird. Their 

 length was slightly in excess of 7in., and the weight of the 

 largest was exactly Joz. They were evidently young of the 

 same brood. In his letter Mr. Footner recalled the fact that 

 Sir Kenelm Digby, who lived in the time of Charles I., and 

 married a lady of great beauty, used to feed his wife on 

 capons fattened on adders, which were believed to preserve 

 beauty. Sir Kenelm Digbj% whose jiortrait may be seen in 

 Vandyke's Iconography, was remarkable as a charlatan, who 

 proposed to cure wounds bj' applying a sympathetic powder 

 to the weapons they were caused by, and who pubhshed a 

 treatise " Secrets pour la Beaute des Dames," from which 

 the viper treatment is extracted. 



Mr. G. F. Passmore, of Speranza, Exeter, writing in the 

 Field of June 2, 1900, states : "An extraordinary fatality 

 occurred to one of my hen pheasants, confined with a number 

 of others in a large pen, at Lambert, Hatherleigh, North 

 Devon, on Sunday, November 27, between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. 

 The pheasant, when found, had swallowed about Gin. of a 

 viper, whilst about 8in. of the tail part of the reptile was 

 protruding from the mouth of the bird. Both the bird and 

 viper were dead." 



The structure of the digestive organs of the pheasant is 

 perfectly adapted to the assimilation of the food on which it 

 feeds. The sharp edge of the upper mandible of the bill is 

 admirably fitted for cutting off portions of the vegetables on 

 which it partly subsists, and the whole organ is equally well 

 adapted for securing the various articles of its extensive 

 dietary. The food, when swallowed, passes into a verv 



