NOTES AND QUERIES. 229 



ground-colour white, with heavy suffused brown markings at the big end, 

 darkest on the zone mentioned before ; the rest of the egg was marked with 

 ashy grey spots. My small experience leads me to believe that this remark- 

 able light-coloured egg is always present, having observed it on every occasion 

 when I have found or examined a clutch of Tree Sparrow's eggs. I should 

 be glad to hear the experience of other observers on the point, as (except in 

 the 4th ed. of Yarrell) I cannot find anything bearing upon the question in 

 the books on British birds and the local avifaunas I have by me. The subject 

 is thus referred to in Yarrell ; — " When the markings are collected in large 

 masses other splotches of ash-colour may be seen on the very apparent white 

 ground, and in most nests of this species there is one egg of this character, 

 whatever be the pattern of the rest " (vol. ii. p. 84). But I think the passage 

 hardly does full justice to this remarkable feature in the life-history of the 

 Tree Sparrow, which is perhaps unique in the history of our British passerine 

 birds. — 0. V. Aplin (Bloxham, Oxon). 



EEPTILIA. 



English Records of Coronella austriaca. — Mr. Boulenger's remarks 

 on the variation of the Smooth Snake, Coronella austriaca (pp. 10-15), and 

 his allusion to the fact of its having been first noticed as a British species 

 in the pages of this Journal (1859, p. 6731), suggested the utility of 

 collecting all the references to it which have since appeared in ' The 

 Zoologist.' They are accordingly appended, and it may be noted that in 

 the same year in which Dr. J. E. Gray made known the discovery of this 

 rare or at least local snake in this country, he announced the fact also in 

 the Annals of Nat. Hist. (1859, p. 317):— 



Gray 



Bond 



Newman 



Dr. Opel 



Blackmore 



Newman 



Cambridge 



1859, page 6731. 



1859 „ 6787. 



1862 „ 8199. 



1865 „ 9505, 9559. 



1865 „ 9724. 



1869 „ 1653. 



1872 „ 3113. 



Kemp Welsh 1872 „ 3150. 



1876 „ 4884. 



1879 „ 462. 



1882 „ 433 (Surrey). 



1882 „ 434. 



1883 „ 84. 

 1883 „ 129. 



Corbin 



Cambridge 



Ridley 



Macpherson 



Axford 



Ridley 



To these references may be added : — * Intellectual Observer,' vol. iii., p. 149, 

 and 0. P. Cambridge, Proceedings Dorset Nat. Hist. Soc, 1886, p. 84, 

 pi. vi. Bell's ' British Reptiles ' having been published in 1837, before 

 Coronella austriaca had been ascertained to exist in the South of England, 

 that author's only reference to this species is an allusion to its supposed 

 occurrence in Dumfriesshire, a supposition which, as Mr. Boulenger has 



