Ray (the water-newt, or eft*) will frequently bite at the angler's bait, and is often caught on his hook. I used to take it for granted that the salamandra aquatica was hatched, lived, and died in the water. But John Ellis, Esq., F.R.S.. (the coralline Ellis), asserts, in a letter to the Royal Society, dated June the 5th, 1766, in his account of the mud iguana, amphibious bipes from South Carolina, that the water-eft, or newt, is only the larva of the land-eft, as tadpoles are of frogs. Lest I should be suspected to misunderstand his meaning, I shall give it in his own words. Speaking of the opercula, or coverings to the gills of the mud iguana, he proceeds to say, that "The form of these pennated coverings approaches very near to what I have some time ago observed in the larva, or aquatic state of our English lacerta, known by the name of eft, or newt, which serve them for coverings to their gills, and for fins to swim with while in this state; and which they lose, as well as the fins of their tails, when they change their state, and become land animals, as I have observed, by keeping them alive for some time myself."

Linnæus, in his Systema Naturæ, hints at what Mr. Ellis advances, more than once.

Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of but one venomous reptile of the serpent kind in these kingdoms, and that is the viper. As you propose the good of mankind to be an object of your publications, you will not omit to mention common salad oil as a sovereign remedy against the bite of the viper.† As to the blind worm (anguis fragilis, so called because it snaps in sunder with a small blow)

* A friend of mine put a newt into a bottle of brandy, and it lived ten minutes in it. This will prove how capable they are of undergoing the extremes of heat and cold, as they have been known to recover after having been frozen perfectly hard. There are also undoubted proofs of newts having lived in the intestines of human beings. A leech, also, after it has been frozen and then thawed, will live and suck eagerly. Both newts, lizards, and some other amphibia, are provided with lungs, and might be supposed capable of uttering sounds, but they are altogether mute.-ED.

A blind worm, that I kept alive for nine weeks, would, when touched, turn and bite, although not very sharply: its bite was not sufficient to draw blood, but it always retained its hold until released. It drank sparingly of milk, raising the head when drinking. It fed upon the little white slug (limax agrestis, LINN.) so common in fields and gardens, eating six or seven of them one after the other; but it did not eat them every day. It invariably took them in one position. Elevating its head slowly above its victim, it

I have found, on examination, that it is perfectly innocuous. A neighbouring yeoman (to whom I am indebted for some good hints) killed and opened a female viper about the 27th of May: he found her filled with a chain of eleven eggs, about the size of those of a blackbird; but none of them were advanced so far towards a state of maturity as to contain any rudiments of young. Though they are oviparous, yet they are viviparous also, hatching their young within their bellies, and then bringing them forth. Whereas snakes lay chains of eggs every summer in my melon beds, in spite of all that my people can do to prevent them; which eggs do not hatch till the spring following, as I have often experienced. Several intelligent folks assure me that they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her helpless young down her throat on sudden surprises, just as the female opossum does her brood into the pouch under her belly, upon the like emergencies; and yet the London vipercatchers insist on it to Mr. Barrington, that no such thing ever happens.* The serpent kind eat, I believe, but once in

would suddenly seize the slug by the middle, in the same manner that a ferret or dog will generally take a rat by the loins; it would then hold it thus sometimes for more than a minute, when it would pass its prey through its jaws and swallow the slug head foremost. It refused the larger slugs, and would not touch either young frogs or mice. Snakes kept in the same cage took both frogs and mice. The blind worm avoided the water: the snakes, on the contrary, coiled themselves in the pan containing water, which was put into the cage, and appeared to delight in it. The blind worm was a remarkably fine one, measuring fifteen inches in length. It cast its slough while in my keeping. The skin came off in separate pieces, the largest of which was two inches in length, splitting first on the belly, and the peeling on the head being completed the last. After the skin was cast the colour of the reptile was much lighter than it had before been.

I had for the first time, while this blind worm was in my custody, an opportunity of witnessing the power which slugs have of suspending themselves by a thread. They availed themselves of it in escaping from the cage of the reptile. The cage was on a shelf four feet six inches from the floor, and, with the aid of the glutinous filament which they exuded, the slugs lowered themselves from it to the ground.-G. D.

Having taken much pains to ascertain the fact of young vipers entering the mouth of the mother, I can now have little doubt but that such is the case, after the evidence of persons who assured me they had seen it. I also found young vipers in the stomach of the mother, of a much larger size than they would be when first ready to be excluded. Amongst others, a vipercaacher on the Brighton downs told me that he had often witnessed the fact.-ED.

a year; or, rather, but only just at one season of the year. Country people talk much of a water-snake, but, I am pretty sure, without any reason; for the common snake (coluber natrix) delights much to sport in the water, perhaps with a view to procure frogs and other food.*

I cannot well guess how you are to make out your twelve species of reptiles, unless it be by the various species, or rather varieties, of our lacerti, of which Ray enumerates five. I have not had opportunity of ascertaining these, but remember well to have seen, formerly, several beautiful green lacerti on the sunny sand-banks near Farnham, in Surrey; and Ray admits there are such in Ireland.

LETTER XVIII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, July 27, 1768.

DEAR SIR,-I received your obliging and communicative letter of June the 28th, while I was on a visit at a gentleman's house, where I had neither books to turn to, nor leisure to sit down to return you an answer to many queries, which I wanted to resolve in the best manner that able.

am

A person, by my order, has searched our brooks, but could find no such fish as the gasterosteus rungitius; he found gasterosteus aculeatus in plenty. This morning, in a basket, I packed a little earthern pot full of wet moss, and in it some sticklebacks, male and female, the females big

The common snake often takes to the water and swims well and boldly. Not only do they swim across the wide parts of the river Ouse, but they have been seen to swim to the Isle of Wight from the Hampshire coast, and have occasionally been seen swimming in Portsmouth Harbour.

As a proof of the accuracy of Mr. White's observation, that snakes probably go into the water to procure food, I may mention, that a gentleman lately saw one of these reptiles in a stream and under some weeds, consequently under water, watching for prey. Having observed it for some minutes, he took it out of the water, when it not only emitted a most unpleasant stench, but struck at him several times like a viper.-ED.