Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 4 (1846).djvu/98

1264 in the town, where the usual antidotes were applied with success." The foregoing is copied from the Northampton Mercury of Saturday, January 3rd, 1846. It is to me surprising that a viper should be found in the grass, and able to bite, on the 30th of December. If I resided in or near London I would go to Petersham to ascertain whe- ther the accident happened or not, &c., and if it did, I would inquire into all the par- ticulars and send them to ' The Zoologist.' — John King; Buckingham, January 7th, 1846.

P.S. I once had a couple of young vipers, not half-grown brought to me, caught at Ditchley, in Oxfordshire, on the same day, by the same person, and at a short dis- tance from each other ; one brown, the other quite black. They are now preserved in spirits, by Mr. George Sirett, chemist of this town. Some here will argue that the ad- der and viper are not the same, but different reptiles, and that the adder is much more active and dangerous than the viper. — John King.

Further remarks on the habits of the Eel. — There are one or two observations which I wish to make concerning Mr. Banister's letter (Zool. 1244) on my paper on the ha- bits of the eel (Zool. 1216), contained in this month's Zoologist. The eels that I men- tion as having been taken by cutting a hole in the ice were not congregated round any aperture, but were simply lying under the surface of the ice some way from the edge which is usually the last to freeze, and the finding of this eel in the polecat's nest was, if I mistake not, (for as I said it was only from report I learnt it,) in September when the mode of fishing he suggests could not be practicable. In confirmation however of his assertion, that the animal in question feeds on frogs, I may mention that a friend, to whom I showed Mr. Banister's paper, told me that he remembered find- ing a polecat's store one winter, in which, as well as eels, there were a great many frogs. — H.T. Frere; Aylsham, February 4th, 1846.

Occurrence of the Tadpole Fish off Sherringham. — Within an hour after posting my last communication to you, 1 purchased in the Norwich market a fine specimen near a foot long of the tadpole-fish {Raniceps trifurcatus.) The person who sold it me said that it had been caught off Sherringham on the rock cod-lines, and that he had once before obtained a specimen which he had sold to Mr. J. H. Gurney. When I first purchased it, it was of an intense black, which has since faded to a dark grey on the head. — H.T. Frere; Aylsham, January 30th, 1846.

Memorandum of the Spawning of Trout. — Thinking that a notice of the periods of spawning of the trout in the rivers and brooks of Derbyshire, may prove acceptable to your readers, I give below the results as far as have occurred to me in my fishing ex- cursions during the season.

Robert John Bell: Mickleover House, January 10th, 1846.