42 NEW-YORK FAUNA. 



THE WATER SNAKE. 



Tropidonotus sipedon. 

 plate xiv. fig. 31. — (state collection.) 



Coluber sipedon. LlN. Syst. p. 379. 



C.porcatus? Daud. Hist. Reptiles, Vol. 7, p. 204. 



Brown Water Snake. Haklan, Med. & Phys. Researches, p. 114. 



The Water Adder. Storek, Mass. Report, p. 228. 



Tropidonotus sipedon. Holbrook, N. Am. Herpetology, Vol. 4, p. 29, pi. 6. 



Characteristics. Dark brown, or obscurely banded with darker ; beneath white, varied with 

 brown or rufous. Abdominal plates, 130- 35 ; caudal, 70 - 75. Scales 

 strongly carinate. Length two to five feet. 



Description. Body robust. Tail rather abruptly tapering. Scales sub-imbricate, carinate ; 

 those on the three or four series adjacent to the middle of the back, so conspicuously carinated 

 as to exhibit the appearance of deep grooves between them. The tail ends in a consolidated 

 corneous tip, popularly termed a horn. Plate on the head large, the vertical or central pair 

 largest ; labial plates above sixteen, beneath eighteen. 



Color. This is exceedingly variable, and does not appear to depend on age ; for in very 

 small ones of the same size, the markings are often dissimilar. Usually of uniform dull brown 

 color above, dark mahogany colored sides, and white varied with reddish beneath. In the spe- 

 cimen figured on the plate, which was two feet and a half long, the following was the arrange- 

 ment of the colors : Back dark ash ; on the sides a series of dark chocolate-colored vertical 

 bands, fifty-seven in number, dilated over the back, narrowed on the flanks, and margined 

 with blackish, the intervening spaces ash-colored. Beneath, marbled with cinereous and 

 coppery. Chin white ; sides of the jaws whitish ; numerous short, dark, vertical stripes. A 

 black spot in front on the chin. Upper surface of the head uniform, polished, dark brown. 



Abdominal plates, 140. Total length, 30*0. 



Caudal ditto, 75. Length of tail, 8 - 0. 



All the colubrine snakes take to the water more or less, and move about in it with great 

 ease ; but this species may be said to live in it habitually. It is called indifferently the 

 Water Snake or Water Adder, and is erroneously said to be poisonous. It is frequently 

 found in fields which are occasionally overflowed, feeding upon frogs and fishes. One was 

 found to have swallowed a small pike. A correspondent of the Monthly American Journal of 

 Geology asserts that he once saw a water snake lying on a bush over a stream, under which 

 some chubs were swimming ; he watched the snake, and saw it fall or plunge into the water 

 from the bush, and seize a chub. Although of a sullen vicious temper, and with a threaten- 

 ing aspect, it is completely harmless. 



The Water Snake is found in this and the States adjacent to us on the east. It also occurs 

 in Pennsylvania and Ohio, but I am unacquainted with its southern geographical limits. 



