40 BRITISH SERPENTS. 
full and authentic details of the matter, so I com- 
munieated with Sir Robert Hodson, who kindly wrote 
to me as follows :— 
“T regret Tam unable to give you any facts from 
my own knowledge, as I was away from home at the 
time, and the snake having been sent to be preserved, 
I have not seen it yet. My steward has supphed 
me with the following facts. The snake was killed 
by lim on October 8, 1900, in a laurel-bush. It was 
identified by Dr Scharff, of the Museum of Science 
and Art of Dublin, as belonging to the species known 
as Tropidonotus natria or ring snake. It measured 
26 inches in length. 
“The only view I can form as to how this snake 
came to Ireland, is that possibly the eggs might have 
come over amongst some /ruil-tices which I pur- 
chased in England three or four years ayo, and being 
planted im a warm sheltered position, the egos might 
fo) 
possibly have matured. The snake was killed in the 
neighbourhood of these trees. It is remarkable that 
another snake, reported to be of the same species, 
was also killed in Co. Wicklow this autumn.’— 
Hollybrooke, Bray, Co. Wicklow, 13th November 
1900. 
One or two points at once struck me in Sir Robert 
Hodson’s letter as shehtly different from the report 
first quoted. In the first place, the snake was 26 
inches long, not 20 inches as reported—that is, it 
was an older snake 5 1 ow eT eee 
a ler ike than one would have gathered 
