The Striped Snakes Garter Snakes 



Habits. In habits this snake appeals to the two preceding 

 species. It is very quick in its motions, and appears to be per- 

 fectly at home in the water, swimming with agility and extreme 

 grace and diving to the bottom of a pond or stream and there 

 secreting itself among aquatic plants. 



Captive specimens are very hardy, and will live indefinitely 

 upon a diet of small frogs or fishes. A number of specimens in 

 the writer's collection were very fond of climbing into a small 

 branch that had been placed in their cage. Here they would 

 coil in a tight cluster, with heads protruding in every direction. 

 Upon the introduction of food they would dart for the prey in 

 frenzied fashion, the lucky individuals thrashing their tails 

 violently as if to distract the attention of their hungry associates 

 from the morsels in the jaws of the former. One of these snakes 

 gave birth to fifteen young on the 24th of August. 



THE ARIZONA GARTER SNAKE 



Eutcenia megalops, (Kennicott) 



The Arizona Garter Snake stands as a connecting link be- 

 tween the three slender-bodied species already described and the 

 much stouter species of Euicznia. In form, it is moderately 

 stout, though less so than the succeeding species. The form 

 appeals somewhat to the Western ribbon snake (E. proximo), 

 but compared with that species the body is distinctly stouter, 

 the head much broader and the eyes larger, while the tail is 

 proportionately shorter about one quarter of the total length. 

 Besides these structural differences, the pattern differs from that 

 of the Western ribbon snake, the stripes of the sides being very 

 narrow and all of the stripes are of a uniform greenish-yellow 

 or whitish. 



Colouration. Ashen brown, or clay colour, with narrow 

 black lines, or spots on the edges of many of the scales; these 

 spots, however, do not produce the tessellated (checker-board) 

 pattern between the stripes as with most of the succeeding species. 

 The stripe on the back is yellowish or greenish-white, and not so 

 sharply delineated as with the species of the "ribbon snake" 

 group. The stripes on the sides cover portions of the third and 

 fourth rows of scales; they are narrow and of the same colour as 

 the stripe on the back. Above, the head is paler than the 



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