70 
NATURE NOTES 
are vain of their tongues, emit effluvium and even hiss, while 
their markings are those of their parents in miniature. What 
their food may be it is hard to say. Certainly no frogs could be 
found small enough for the gullets of such tiny creatures. 
Such characteristics I have noted in the grass-snake, as 
the result of two years’ acquaintance with it. My neglect of 
past opportunity to scrutinise the viper, also found in many 
parts of England, forbids me to give anything like an exact 
description of that pest. I cannot too strictly caution a person 
against capturing, at least directly by the hand, any snake until 
he is quite sure that it is harmless. The bite of an adder 
causes at least a very severe illness. As the adder is not 
prone to water like the other, a snake found on a ditch-bank 
by a meadow, or in a damp place, would be less likely to prove 
noxious than one found, say, on a heath or rocky place.* To 
my certain knowledge grass-snakes are pretty common in that 
part of Berks which borders with Oxon. In this district at 
least it is not spared, where, I was told, it is not so frequently 
found as in former years. Verily an innocent creature falls 
beneath the anathema with which its race is branded. 
J. W. Cole. 
BIRDS OF NORTH-EAST LONDON. 
HE records, past and present, of that portion of the 
metropolis extending from Stoke Newington in the 
north, by way of Stamford Hill and the Lea Marshes, 
to Stratford in the east, having regard to the fact that 
the whole area lies within a radius of four miles from the City 
boundary, are, to say the least, somewhat remarkable. Out of 
the 384 species which according to Mr. Howard Saunders’ latest 
computation (“ Manual of British Birds,” second edition, April, 
1899) represent our total avifauna, over one-third are included. 
A glance at a map of the district will, in a measure, account for 
this, by showing that it comprises a vast expanse of marsh land 
and water having direct communication with the open country, 
even to the sea coast. Mr. J. E. Harting when writing a few 
years ago on the birds of Hampstead, referred to “ the absence of 
any considerable pools, and the distance from any river,” as 
sufficiently explaining the scarcity of waterfowl in that other- 
wise favoured locality. In this particular respect north-east 
London excels. And yet, curiously enough, in most of the 
books referring to London birds, the locality has, to a consider- 
able extent, been overlooked. In many instances the respective 
compilers have gone far afield for examples which might have 
been given near at hand. 
* This is not alto_.;elher a safe rule, for adders do sometimes frequent marshy 
ground. — E d. A~.JV. 
