r8 94 .] 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



173 



RE " RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF WOODLAND, FEN, 



AND HILL." 



In the notice of " Random Recollections of Woodland, Fen, and Hill" {ante, p. 152), 

 the reviewer says many kind things of the work, but he points out what he considers 

 two or three errors in matters of fact. The first refers to the young of the blindworm 

 (Anguis fragiiis) . He says that I have described them as " grey-brown on the back, 

 with whitish bellies," and then goes on to say that all that he has seen " have been 

 quite black below, and usually bright yellow on the back, with a central black band 

 terminating in a spot on the head." Now, what I wrote was : — " They vary in colour, 

 being yellowish or grey-brown," &c. ; and as I was describing in most general terms, 

 it seems to me a mere quibble to distinguish between "yellowish" and "bright 

 yellow," the latter term surely being scarcely admissible even for the palest forms of 

 young blindworms, Mr. Bond's creamy-white, mentioned below, being a much better 

 colour term. The reviewer's description appears to be a paraphrase of the well- 

 thumbed description of the blindworm, written years ago by the Rev. J. G.Wood, 

 which, although I have no doubt of its accuracy, I have never been able quite to 

 verify. The black dorsal markings vary indefinitely, so also does the colour of the 

 belly ; the former are frequently almost obsolete, the latter varies from a bluish-black 

 to white. On the strength of this supposed colour-difference, my critic suspects that 

 " I have not seen many young ones," a guess sufficiently wide of the mark. From 

 the earlier numbers of the Young Naturalist I note the following : Mr. Ullyett, B.Sc. 

 (vol. iii., p. 15), after showing an extensive acquaintance with the blindworm, says : 

 — " I never saw any young ones that were not bright brown," Then Mr. Bond 

 (Young. Nat., vol. ii., p. 262), says that those he has met with have always been a 

 brownish-grey or creamy-white, more or less mottled." Then another correspondent 

 records a June specimen as " greyish-brown with white belly," and so on. These, as 

 the records of field-naturalists, are the more valuable as confirmatory of my own 

 observations, and prove that my descriptions are not so inaccurate after all. It must 

 be admitted that more space should have been given to the description of variations, 

 so that those who only knew one form might not be shocked that I had described 

 another which they had not seen or of which they had not read. The second criticism 

 refers to the sloughing of the snake. My critic lays it down as a law that the snake 

 sloughs " oftener than thrice a year." This may be so ; but possibly snakes of varying 

 size, age, and sex do not slough infallibly the same number of times. If they do, we 

 have at last found something fixed and constant in Nature. The reviewer again 

 appears to be generalizing on very slender data. My observations do not support his 

 sweeping assertion. I only notice two records in the back volumes of this magazine, and 

 I find that in one ( Young Nat., vol i., p. 203) the number is given as "generally three 

 to four times a year " ; this, however, depending on the state of health, whilst a later 

 record gives " two or three times " per year. The third point refers to my statement 

 of the alleged increase of darker " insects " during the last half or three-quarters of a 

 century in manufacturing districts, which fact the reviewer takes leave to doubt. I 

 may>mention that my studies in melanism have been connected with Lepidoptera only, 

 and not with "insects" generally. One can understand a difference of opinion 

 existing as to the cause of this increase, but it is rather late in the day to question 

 a fact which all our large collections of Lepidoptera illustrate fully. It would be 

 interesting to a specialist like myself to see the collection of lepidoptera formed by 

 the writer, and to compare the specimens, which I presume he possesses, from the 

 manufacturing districts previous to the use of coal in those districts, with those which 

 have been captured during the last few years. I would recommend him to refer to 

 the following authorities for information on the point : — Entomologist, vols. ii. and x. ; 



