TYNE PROVINCE. 333 
is in the south-eastern part of the county. I lave 
seen a cluster of the eggs of the ring snake sent here 
from Northallerton in Yorkshire, and at the present 
time (1900), from the evidence I have, I do not think 
that this species occurs north of the Tees. The ring 
snake and the adder are often confused by people 
who see them, and I have never during fifty years 
heard of any of the old genuine observers mention 
the ring snake as being found in Northumberland. 
It has. often been brought north by pedestrians, 
and often escapes, but no one ever saw a colony of 
them in the north, and IT have not heard of even 
one in Northumberland. The adder is our reptile, 
and is distributed generally over the moorland dis- 
tricts, in the burns, and by the banks of rivers, but 
never in numbers. One may travel over miles of 
moorland a whole summer and not see one, although 
they may be there; and sometimes sheep are bitten, 
also pointer and setter dogs, the bite generally being 
on the legs. 
“My opinion is that the ring snake does not 
occur here except accidentally, and that the adder 
is generally but not abundantly distributed in these 
counties.”!—Richard Howse, M.A., Museum Nat. Hist. 
Soc., Newcastle-on-Tyne. 
1 Since sending me the above report—indeed shortly before his 
death, which T regret to say took place in March 1901—Mr Howse 
informed me that the black adder also occurred in this district more 
often than he at first supposed. (Compare with Rev. C. Davies's 
report on Caermarthen, p. 245.) 
