THE SMOOTIL SNAKE. 5D 
“This occurred in 1891, and not until 1898 did I 
improve my acquaintance with this species. Early in 
June of that year I took a specimen alive upon my 
own land here at Churt, and sent it to the Zoological 
Gardens in London, where it was. still thriving in 
August last (1898). Another specimen was killed 
here by mistake in July, and in August my children 
found a cast-off skin of a fourth specimen. From the 
fact of three specimens having been noted in one 
sumuier, it seems reasonable to conjecture that the 
creature is by no means rare upon our Surrey heaths, 
and that more careful observation may lead to its 
discovery elsewhere.” 
Apparently Berkshire is not the only locality which 
the smooth snake has at one time inhabited, only to 
disappear subsequently, for in ‘Science Gossip’ of 
August 2, 1880, there is an article on this species by 
A. L. Baldry, in which the writer records its former 
frequency in the neighbourhood of Bournemouth, and 
its disappearance thence. Mr Baldry says :— 
“As I lived for some years at Bournemouth, in 
Hampshire, formerly its chief habitat, I have had 
many opportunities of observing the  coronella. 
Twelve years ago—iv., in the year 1868—Bourne- 
mouth was but a very small village, surrounded by 
large expanses of moorland, intersected with marshy 
valleys, and was a famous hunting-ground for either 
naturalists or entomologists. At this time coronella 
was extraordinarily abundant. During the very hot 
