20 BRITISH SERPENTS. 
Indeed it often survives the journey into the stomach 
of the snake, and some have even been rescued from 
their perilous position here apparently little the worse 
for the unpleasant experience. But frogs are by no 
means the sole food of the ring snake. Toads, too 
(most deleterious of foods, and rejected, as Aflalo says, 
by almost every living creature), are devoured. Newts 
also (again deleterious food) are welcomed, being 
“often captured in the water, but invariably con- 
sumed on the bank.”! Being an expert swimmer 
and very fond of passing part of its time in the 
water, it is not surprising to find that this snake 
obtains a considerable portion of its food in that 
element; hence it is said that the ring snake will 
dive after water-newts, and even eatch fish. But 
the ring snake does not by any means restrict itself 
to a water-diet. One of its most favourite meals 
consists of mice (like the adder in this respect). 
Birds, too, and their eees are another variety of 
> 
food largely partaken of, especially the newly hatched 
young of birds which build their nests on the ground. 
It should be mentioned also that amonest the foods 
supphed by the rivers and streams water-voles are 
conspicuous, several of which have been found in the 
stomach of this snake at the same time (see adder- 
food later).2 
1 Aflalo, Natural History (Vertebrates) of the British Islands. 
* It should be stated that some authorities deny that the ring 
snake feeds upon any animal higher in the vertebrate seale hans 
amphibians—not birds or manmniuals. 
