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BRITISH SERPENTS. 
may be 28 inches in length; and if it is, it is well 
worth preservation as an exceptionally large speci- 
men. Honestly measured, however, I question if it 
will be found to be quite so large as my Iona speci- 
men. In any case “ Eoin’s” guinea is perfectly safe. 
If the owner of the bottled snake agrees to his pro- 
posal, I am confident that, far from measuring 36 
inches, the specimen in question will not even 
measure 30 inches; and I shall be surprised to 
hear that it is of equal length with that sent to 
me from Iona. 
It will be of some interest, perhaps, if I state that 
although got in Iona, and seut to me from Iona, the 
adder does not occur in that sacred isle. Adamnan 
tells us that St Columba banished all noxious animals 
from Iona, just as St Patrick banished “all the ver- 
min” from Ireland. The way in which Mr Ritchie 
got the adder which he was so kind as send on to me 
was this. Walking on a beautifully bright and calm 
stunmer evening along the silvery strand that borders 
the narrow sound that separates Iona from the island 
of Mull, which abounds in adders, he noticed some 
creature swinuning fast towards the shore. When it 
landed it rested for a little on the warm white sand, 
which we may suppose was grateful to it after swim- 
ming across the sound. It then wriggled up until it 
reached the adjoining grass-land—the soil proper of 
the sacred isle—into which it had not crept more 
than twice its own length when it suddenly stopped 
