NOTES AND QUERIES. 73 



and also a very rare one, only two other varieties of this species being on 

 record, one of which is in my collection. — J. Whitaker (Rainwortb, 

 Mansfield, Notts). 



REPTILIA. 



Ringed Snake laying Eggs in Captivity.— Some months ago a country 

 lad caught two fine specimens of the Ringed Snake (C. natrix). These I 

 requested him to keep for me until I returned from my holiday. During 

 that time the Snakes laid (between them) seventy-one eggs in the box in 

 which they were kept. The shape of the eggs was oval, and the skin was 

 something similar to limp parchment, and they were from three-quarters to 

 one inch long. Some of these eggs were deposited in heaps, while others 

 lay about the box in twos and threes, closely agglutinated. The Snakes 

 themselves did not seem the least solicitous about the welfare of their eggs, 

 and moved them about as they pleased. I wrote to this boy, telling him to 

 put all the eggs in a warm manure-heap in his garden. That was the only 

 I plan I could think of for hatching them. Great was my vexation to find, 

 when I next saw him, that he had thrown them all away. If he had done 

 as I told him they would in all probability have been successfully hatched. 

 Each Snake measured three feet six iuches in length. Another one be 

 gave me later on was slightly less. — C. B. HoRSBRUGH(Bath). 



MOLLUSC A. 



Homing Instinct in Limpets. — At a meeting of the Bristol Natu- 

 ralists' Society, held on Dec. 27th, Prof. Lloyd Morgan referred to the 

 results of experimental observations he had recently made on the homing 

 habits of Limpets. His plan of operations was to watch for the times 

 when the Limpets were just beginning to start on a journey from their bed 

 on the rock— commonly as the tide left them exposed — and then to lift 

 them bodily up and place them on the rock at distances varying from six 

 to twenty-four inches from their home. A certain proportion of those 

 experimented upon returned accurately to the place whence they were 

 taken — this proportion lessening directly as the distance increased, the time 

 occupied in the return journey also increasing with the distance. Some 

 never returned, and were either lost sight of, or attached themselves to 

 a fresh bit of rock. These observations, Prof. Lloyd Morgan thought, 

 negatived the hypothesis that had been advanced by Prof. Davies, of 

 Aberystwyth, that Limpets found their way back by means of scent. He 

 was inclined to attribute the phenomenon to touch, as he had noticed that 

 while moving, the Limpet always touched the rock with its feelers at each 

 step. Their range of peregrination does not seem to exceed three feet, and 

 the rate of movement in one case observed was an inch iu two minutes, 

 including stoppages. 



ZOOLOGIST, THIRD SERIES, VOL. XIX. FEB. 1895. G 



