They are easily tamed, and can be kept in houses, where they soon accustom themselves to those who have the care of them. At a sign from their keeper, they will twist themselves round his fingers, arms, and neck, insinuate their heads between his lips to drink his saliva, and to hide and warm themselves they creep under his clothes. In their wild state, the adult Ringed Snake lives in the fields; and, when full-grown, shows great irritation when attacked. When exasperated, they move their tongues, erect themselves with great vivacity, and even bite the hand which tries to seize them; but their bite is quite harmless. [This Ringed Snake is the _Natrix torquatus_ of Ray, well known to naturalists. The female is larger than the male. Its food consists a good deal of frogs, which are generally caught by the leg, and swallowed alive, in spite of resistance and very distressing cries. When the skin has just been cast, the Ringed Snake presents beautiful markings, especially when seen swimming across some clear running stream, its head and neck raised above the limpid water, and the sun shining on its bright enamelled skin. It has been supposed, not unnaturally, that the Snake casts its skin at fixed intervals; this, Mr. Bell considers to be a mistake. He has always found that it depended on the temperature of the atmosphere and on their state of health and feeding. "I have known the skin thrown off" he adds, "four or five times during the year. It is always thrown off by reversing it, so that the transparent covering of the eyes and that of the scales are always found in the exuviæ. Previous to this curious phenomenon, the whole cuticle becomes somewhat opaque, the eyes dim, and the animal is evidently blind. It also becomes more or less inactive, until at length, when the skin is ready for removal and the new skin perfectly hard underneath, the animal bursts it at the neck, and creeping through some dense herbage or low brushwood, leaves it detached, and comes forth in brighter and clearer colours than before." The Ringed Snake begins to hybernate, in some warm hedge or under the root of some tree, or other sheltered situation, about the end of autumn; and there they coil themselves up, sometimes in numbers, till the spring again calls them forth. Many instances are told of this Snake being tamed. Mr. Bell had one which knew him from all other persons; it would come to him when let out of its box, and crawl under the sleeve of his coat, and every morning come to him for its draught of milk.]