BUTLER'S GARTER SNAKE. 



ALEXANDER G. RUTHVEN. 

 [From the University Museum, University of Michigan.] 



The garter snake, Entcenia butleri Cope, has been the sub- 

 ject of considerable discussion among herpetologists in spite 

 of the fact that only five specimens were known. In 1888, 

 Professor Cope ('89, p. 399) first recognized and described the 

 species on the basis of a single specimen (Purdue Univ. Catalogue, 

 No. 264) sent to him by Mr. A. W. Butler. This specimen was 

 thought to have come from Richmond, Indiana, but it was un- 

 labeled when Mr. Butler received it from Purdue University, so 

 it mayor may not have come from there. In 1895, Mr. Reddick 

 ('96, p. 261) took another specimen (Univ. of Ind. Cat. No. 1 10) 

 at the Indiana University Biological Station at Turkey Lake, 

 Kosciusko County, Indiana. There are two specimens in the 

 museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 

 (Cat. No. 6523) labeled by Professor Cope, which are described 

 by Mr. A. E. Brown ('01, p. 27) and credited by him to south- 

 eastern Indiana. But in a letter April 15, 1904, he says con- 

 cerning these specimens, "The locality given is Miami river, 

 which probably means Ohio." The fifth specimen recorded (U. 

 S. N. M. Cat. No. 21692) was collected by Mr. Philip Kirsch 

 at Waterloo, Indiana, and is described by Dr. Stejneger ('94, pp. 



593-594). 



Professor Cope examined the type and on the basis of its dis- 

 tinctive characters considered it a good species, a view supported 

 by Dr. Stejneger after a study of the specimen from Waterloo, 

 Indiana. Mr. Brown, however, upon a study of the two speci- 

 mens in the collection of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural 

 Sciences, and for the reason that there were so few specimens 

 known, considered them anomalies of E. sirtalis sirtalis, with 

 considerable reason, for it seems as if four specimens (the speci- 

 men from Turkey Lake is described for the first time in this 

 paper) is entirely too small a number upon which to form a spe- 

 cies. Particularly is this true in a genus like Eutienia, in which 



289 



