NATURAL HISTORY. 
73 
Magazine of Natural History. Wii ether the red 
viper be a good species or not, I shall not here 
attempt to decide, leaving the subject open for still 
further investigation.^ It is said to be extremely rare, 
but it has been found in Cranborne Chace, Dorset- 
shire, and in several arid waste situations in the 
county of Suffolk. 
Worcestershire not possessing any large accumu- 
lations of water, of course its principal fish are to be 
found in the rivers before enumerated in the statisti- 
tical notices. The Severn produces the greatest 
variety, the principal of which are salmon, lampreys, 
lamperns, shad, plaice, shrimps, soles, cod, conger- 
eel, porpoise, and sturgeon. The six last, however, 
are seldom found higher than Berkeley Pill, in the 
county of Gloucester, the tide, except on extraor- 
dinary occasions, not being observed higher than 
Tewkesbury, where the western bank of the river 
forms the most southern extension of the county. 
The lamprey, Petromyzon marinus, is an eel-shaped 
fish, with seven breathing holes on each side of the 
neck, and a somewhat oblong mouth, with many rows 
of yellowish pointed teeth disposed in a circular form. 
These fish are of a dusky colour, irregularly marked 
with a dirty yellow, and often attain the weight 
was killed at Tenbury, in the same county. Whether these are not of exotic descent, 
and whether the breed continues, is what we are at present uninformed of." 
Brit. Zool. iii, 22. 
^ Dr. Leach, in the third volume of his " Zoological Miscellany," makes it only 
a variety of the common viper, and Dr. Fleming, in his " British Zoology," concurs 
in the same opinion. 
