Be BRITISH SERPENTS. 
confinement occasionally devoured spiders, but blue- 
bottle flies whenever given; so finding that the snakes 
throve on this diet, we did not try them with other 
kinds of food. Mice, slow-worms, and the viviparous 
lizard are comparatively scarce on our heaths; its food, 
therefore, with us probably is for the most part the 
sand-lizard. 
“A correspondent (‘ Zool.” 9559) states that Cor- 
onella levis emits a strong odour for defence; but 
Dr Blackmore (‘ Zool.” 9755) says it emits no smell 
at all, even when irritated. I myself have never 
noticed any odour in either of the examples I have 
obtained, so I conelude that if it does emit an odour 
it is of rare occurrence. Opel states (‘ Zool.” 9511) 
that its colour after sloughing is a beautiful steel 
blue for six or seven days. Each of the two we had 
in confinement changed its skin, but the only differ- 
ence I noticed was that they were of somewhat 
brighter and clearer hue than before. In one of 
the examples the spots and markings were scarcely 
visible until after the change of skin. This snake 
is of a bold and fearless nature; one of those I 
captured (having come upon it suddenly) reared itself 
erect on its tail to its full height, hissing and darting 
out its forked tongue in a very pugnacious way. It 
certainly seems to me to be much more frequent on 
our heaths than it was when I first discovered it 
there; and [ often hear of its being seen by others. 
Tts usual habitat is, no doubt, dry sandy spots, but I 
