134 BRITISH SERPENTS. 
“The reptile does not appear to have been secured, 
but is ascribed ‘presumably to the adder species,’ 
Now, of the three snakes inhabiting this country, one 
only is venomous (Pelias bers), the ‘little viper’ of 
France and the Continent generally. 
“Your correspondents say that the case was first 
looked upon as one of a bite of an ‘ordinary mountain 
snake, If by mountain snake is meant the common 
ringed or grass snake, it would be deeply interesting to 
know, both as a question of natural history and as a 
point of possible importance in diagnosis, whether they 
have ever seen or heard on good authority of this 
creature biting. 
“Tt will hiss furiously on the smallest provocation, 
and its odour when enraged is something appalling ; 
but though I have handled hundreds, perhaps 
thousands, of them in the course of my hfe, I never 
experienced a bite from one, nor have I ever met with 
any one whose testimony was otherwise. And I am 
not acquainted with any other imember of the 
serpent tribe of which the same thing can be said, 
¢ 
c= 
although I have ‘gone in’ for reptiles all my days.—I 
o 
oS 
am, Wc., ARTHUR STRADLING, Watford.” 
My own experience with the ring snake coincides 
with that of Dr Stradling. Though this species will 
hiss volubly and open its mouth when caught, I have 
never known it attempt to bite, even when a finger 
was ollered to it. 
