﻿President's Address. 



61 



off. One which I timed near Killin last year "lived" for fully- 

 half an hour. 



Slow-worm, Anguis fragilis, L. — I fear that now Blackford 

 Hill is a public park within the city boundary, the Slow-worm is 

 doomed to disappear from this old habitat. The last I have a note 

 of from there was killed on 11th April 1901 [another occurred 

 in 1908]. In June 1897 one was got in East Princes Street 

 Gardens, and taken to the Edinburgh Museum (Director's Report 

 for that year). At a meeting of the Royal Physical Society in 

 November 1856, Prof. Fleming remarked " on the very local distri- 

 bution of the Slow- worm, its great scarcity or total absence in this 

 neighbourhood, and its apparent frequency ia Clydesdale " ; and 

 Mr George Logan "mentioned he had taken one some years ago 

 in Presmennan Wood, Berwickshire {sic)^ which he kept alive 

 for some time" (^Proceedings, vol. i. p. 191). In August 1894 I 

 received a male from Doune, between Stirling and Callander ; 

 and in April 1896, and again in May 1897, the species was 

 found to be fairly common in the neighbourhood of Aberfoyle, 

 where on one occasion 1 observed one basking on a sunny bank 

 in company with three adders — they were all mixed up. The 

 tail of the Slow-worm, which itself escaped, and one of the adders 

 were secured. In September 1897 a large specimen was captured 

 near Denny, Stirlingshire, and taken to Mr Harvie-Brown. 



Addee, Vipera berus (L.) — On 7th May 1898 an Adder, about 

 21 inches in length, was captured on Auchencorth Moor, near 

 Penicuik, during a field-meeting of the Scottish Natural History 

 Society. I had the facts at the time from Mr P. Adair, who 

 was with the party. When staying at Aberfoyle in April and 

 May 1896 and in subsequent years, I found the Adder quite 

 common all over that neighbourhood. An adult pair, secured at 

 one stroke on 26th April, measured as follows: — S 20|- ins., of 

 which tail 2|- ins. ; ? 22 ins., of which tail barely 2f ins. Others 

 were — 6 20 ins., ? 20| ins., ? 24 ins., and a half-grown one 

 not measured. I have never measured an Adder more than 

 24|- inches in length, but one evidently at least 27 inches (its 

 captor called it 36 !) was killed between Callander and Port of 

 Menteith in 1867 (see letters in Scotsman of 22nd June and 

 30th July 1900), In the New Statistical Account the Adder is 

 mentioned among the rarer animals found in the parish of Stirling 

 (1841).^ A circumstantial account of the capture of an Adder in 

 a cricket-field at Blackford, Edinburgh, appeared in the Scotsman 

 newspaper of 6th May 1895. The specimen (now in my posses- 

 sion) was, however, killed in Sutherland, and taken to the cricket- 

 ground by way of a joke! 



Frog and Toad — On 5th October 1894, in Pease Dean, near 

 Cockburnspath, I caught one of the finest Common Frogs (Pana 



^ In the Old Statistical Account of Legerwood, Berwickshire (vol. xvi., 

 1795, p. 487), is the following: "Adders, although rare, are sometimes seen 

 basking among the heath in the warm days of summer;" and they were 

 reported to be unusually numerous in Lauderdale in 1864 (cf. Zoologist 

 for 1865, p. 9457). This, however, relates to "Tweed." 



VOL. XVIL E 



