half hour (after the frog had been swallowed for the second time) I could still hear it give a faint croak." -B. J. Horton, Sparkbrook, Birmingham. Ring snake in a stone.-A most curious snake. incident was related to me by the Rev. F. W. Brandreth of Buckland Newton, Dorset. Some five years This illustration represents the condition of affairs found by the keeper. This is not the actual specimen, but a flint I found in the same locality (where they abound), and which the keeper assured me was identical in appearance with the original one. I inserted a ring snake through the hole in the flint, to show the result, as he found it. ago (i.e., in 1895) his keeper found a ring snake embedded in a flint stone, from which it could not. possibly escape. The stone had a hole in the centre, and the body of the snake was protruding from either side of the stone, like the two halves of the axle of a wheelbarrow. The snake was about 15 inches long, and was quite fixed in the stone, which was a flint. The reptile was thin in the middle and bigger at both ends on either side of the stone, and those who saw it consider that it must have grown for some time in this extraordinary position. The flint had to be broken in half before the snake could be released. I can only account for the reptile being caught in this way by supposing that it attempted to get through the hole in the stone at a time when its stomach was bulging from some food, that it was wedged in firmly where its girth was largest, and being unable to move either forwards or backwards, had so remained fixed. The organs on either side of the point of constriction would soon swell out and render all efforts at escape quite futile. Adder with two heads.-The Rev. Canon Bush, Duloe Rectory, Cornwall, has sent me a very interesting note on an adder killed in 1853 (or 1854) which had two heads. The adder was brought to him by a labourer, who had found it in a wood in the neighbouring parish of St Martin. The reptile was about a foot long, and was shaped like the letter Y, the two limbs of the Y representing the division of the reptile into two heads. My correspondent noticed that each head had independent action, and that when the adder opened one mouth the other mouth did not necessarily follow suit. The curiosity was at once packed up and sent alive to the Zoological Gardens, a journey which in those days occupied considerably more than the seven hours now sufficient to do the distance. Although the adder reached its destination alive, it died soon afterwards. This is not the place for an abstruse embryological dissertation to account for the monstrosity, but it is probably not unconnected with the fact that I drew attention to in the chapter on the development of the adder-namely, that frequently one finds two embryo adders in one egg. Where such is the case, an accidental fusion of the early developing cells might account for the production of a double-headed adder. Adders and snake-stones. One does not hear very much about snake-stones in connection with British serpents, but in tropical countries, where serpents are common, these curious charms or remedies they are used in both ways-present a very interesting study. But the Eastern ideas on the subject have their counterpart in our country in Wales, Scotland, and in Cornwall. (An excellent account of "snake-stones" is given in 'Our Reptiles and Batrachians,' by M. C. Cooke.) The superstition is that "about Midsummer Eve it is usual for snakes to meet in companies, and that by joining heads together and hissing, a kind of bubble is formed, which the rest, by continual hissing, blow on till it quite passes through the body, and then it immediately hardens, and resembles a glass ring, which whoever finds shall prosper in his undertakings. The rings thus generated are called Gleinau Nadroeth; in English, snake-stones" (Antiquities of Cornwall,' by Borlase). I have heard of similar stories being told in Denbighshire. A variety of this superstition is found in the Vale of Glamorgan, where the idea is that when the reptiles congregate they kill one of their species and weave or make on the dead serpent's tail a small ball. The snakes are said to be very fierce during the operation, and the victim is supposed to give vent to shrieks of agony. Here as elsewhere the snake-stone is regarded as a charm, and as bringing good luck to the possessor. Moving masses of snakes. Several correspondents have told me that they have encountered masses of snakes writhing together in a ball. I confess I do not quite understand this curious phenomenon seen on the open land. It would appear to be only explainable on the supposition that they had worked themselves out of their hibernating quarters en masse when thus encountered, or that a number had got together in the pairing season. Whatever the real signification of this curious circumstance, it would seem to be not very uncommon, as I have had no less than four accounts of it being seen in six months. -Author. |