320 BRITISH SERPENTS. 
less ground left for them to inhabit. Zootiea viripara 
can continue long after the ring snake and the adder 
have gone. In the Trent Level the adder is found on 
the sandhills and the ring snake on the intermediate 
peaty soils, or rather this was the case until our 
commons became very restricted in area. Scores of 
intelligent and truthful labouring men have told me 
incidents of the adder swallowing the young. In one 
ease the number of young mentioned was eleven. I 
have no experience on the point, and therefore no 
opinion. TI greatly doubt having seen an adder of 18 
inches long in the county.’—Rev. Ed. Adrian Wood- 
ruffe-Peacock, F.LS., F.G.8., Vicar of Cadney, Brigg. 
“The ring snake turns up now and again in all 
parts of the county, but I have seen it plentifully, 
especially on Scotton Common and Blyton Carrs. A 
friend living near these localities writes to me, ‘One 
sunny morning in early spring the ring snakes were 
lying on a hedge-bank in scores—the place was alive 
with them. The average length of this snake here is 
about 5 feet or shghtly over. 
“The adder oceurs not unusually on Scotton Com- 
mon, and the same writer says, ‘1 should consider it 
plentiful; and on one of my rambles I brought one 
home and placed it in a box with a sheet of glass over 
it for observation. Next day Iwas much surprised to 
find four young ones with it. Somehow or other one 
of them made its eseape. On the following spring I 
Was moving some stones near the greenhouse flue, and 
