376 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF ! 1895. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ZOOLOGY OF TENNESSEE. 

 No. 1, REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS. 



BY SAMUEL N. RHOADS. 



The following is the first of a series of papers treating of the 

 collections of Mammals, Birds, Reptiles and Mollusks made for 

 the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia by the writer 

 during a trip through Tennessee, in the months of May and June, 

 1895. 



Entering the northwestern corner of the State April 29th, collect- 

 ing was carried on at the following stations in order of sequence. 



1. Samburg (Wheeling), Obion County; April 30th to May 6th, 

 a small village on the eastern shore of Reelfoot Lake, at the mouth 

 of Indian Creek. This region lies at the foot of the Mississippi 

 Bluff, which makes its nearest approach to the lake at this point, 

 the strip of intervening land on which the village is built being 

 about a quarter of a mile wide. The bluff is precipitous, rising 

 more than 100 feet above the lake in this vicinity, and clothed with 

 fine forests of beech, oak and chestnut, the first largely predominat- 

 ing. 



The bottom lands surrounding the lake increase in extent both 

 north and south of the Indian Creek confluence, and their whole 

 extent, to within a few rods of the bluff, is annually flooded 

 during high water in the Mississippi River. The flora of these 

 bottoms is of the most luxuriant description, immense growths of 

 of cypress, cottonwood, gum and maple fringing the shores and 

 extending in unbroken areas back to the deforested crests of the 

 escarpment. Beneath these is an undergrowth of vines and cane 

 which is almost impenetrable except where the annual brush firing 

 by the farmers and woodsmen has opened a passage way, or the 

 grazing of sheep and cattle and the rooting of swine have destroyed 

 the underbrush. The lake itself is eighteen miles long, its width 

 varying from one-half to three miles, the greatest breadth being 

 directly along a line passing a little north of west through Samburg. 



