148 
THE ESSEX NATURALIST. 
My earliest date for the grass snake is 17th March (1918); 
the following year I did not see one until the 18th April, but this 
was a cold spring. The 1st April is the average date. On the 
30th March, 1912, while in Hainault Forest with the Messrs. 
Hocking, I made a grab at something moving in the dead leaves 
at my feet. It was a bunch of snakes ; two at least escaped down 
mole runs in opposite directions, leaving me with a living knot 
twisted together in an extraordinary way; but this consisted 
of two snakes only. Christopher Parsons, in the April of 1845, 
near Rochford, fired his gun at a similar commotion in the ivy 
leaves on a roadside bank, and bagged nine snakes (cf.“ Zoolog¬ 
ist,” 1845, p. 1027). 
Out of the many Essex snakes I have handled, not one 
exceeded 38 inches in length, but in 1917, a Theydon snake, 
34 inches long,was bulky enough to weigh exactly three-quarters 
of a pound. I came across it on a dry grassy bank, far from wate r 
and the colours were so dark, and the body so stout,that it looked 
very much like a large viper. Young snakes are seldom met 
with, unless they are unearthed from hibernacula. I have notes 
of a set of three, each twelve inches long, dug out on the 21st 
March ; and, on the 7th December, of a brood of tiny creatures, 
no larger than those which emerge from the egg. An attempt 
to incubate snakes’ eggs in my marrow bed proved a failure. Noth¬ 
ing seems to be known of the length of time before a snake is 
mature ; it must be at least three years, and perhaps more. 
3.—THE BLINDWORM OR SLOW-WORM {Anguis fragilis > 
is not markedly common in the county. Sometimes I have 
seen one in broad daylight, either on the move or basking in the 
sun, but the animal has never come my way while turning 
over logs, etc., in search of insects. Possibly it is common, 
enough in large quiet gardens free from children or jays. 
4.—THE TOAD (Bufo vulgaris). 
Of this Essex batrachian I have nothing very novel to record 
As with the frog, we have still much to learn about its habits 
and I have noticed that these points are handled with suspic¬ 
ious brevity in the works I have read, both British and Conti¬ 
nental. How old is the toad before it is mature ? Where do 
