THE RING SNAKE. 31 
asking him for the facts of the matter as they had 
come under his notice, and asking him if possible to 
send me one of the snakes for identification. He very 
kindly wrote me an account of what he knew, and at 
the same time put me into communication with one 
of the residents of the houses concerned, and to these 
two gentlemen I am indebted for the following details 
of the locality. It seems, then, that the house in 
question is situated in a row of eighteen, called 
Cefncaeau Row, some two miles from Llanelly. The 
row faces north, the road runs at the front doors, the 
gardens of the houses being across the road. Beyond 
the gardens is a field in which is an old quarry, called 
Cae Cefn quarry. The distance from the quarry to the 
front of the row is 300 yards. At the back of the 
row is a stubble-field, the level of which is above that 
of the ground-floor of the houses. There are no back- 
doors to the houses, the back walls of which are only 
separated from the field by an open drain, which 
carries off the water. Each house has a small back- 
window looking on to this field, some of these windows 
being made to open, others not. Each house consists 
of two rooms below and one long room above. In the 
second field at the back is an old disused coal-pit, now 
filled, and which has not been worked for a hundred 
years or so. This is 200 yards from the back wall. 
Fields bound the row at one end, the other end open- 
ing into the turnpike road which leads from Llanelly 
to Swansea. A glance at the plan appended will 
