84 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



region. I remember very plainly that about twenty-five years 

 ago I caught and played with about ten or twelve specimens 

 that I found at one spot on the side of a fence in Madison 

 County, Ills. E. Kennicott also reports in the Smithsonian 

 Catalogue, under number 2204, on a specimen that he col- 

 lected in Monroe County, Ills. I think that cultivation has 

 destroyed its haunts and more or less exterminated it. 



4. Coluber vulpinus Baird and Girard. — The fox snake. 



April 22 I found the first specimen of this snake at Dar- 

 denne prairie, St. Charles County. The same day I came 

 across two other dead specimens that somebody had killed 

 and mutilated. Mr. Charles Aldrich sent three specimens to 

 the Smithsonian that he collected in Webster City, Iowa. 

 Cope states that it is distributed over the northwest of the 

 eastern district, not being known from east of Illinois, or 

 south of the Missouri River. This is the most robust species 

 of the genus and reaches as large a size as any. 



5. Coluber spiloides, Dumeril and Bibron. 



Professor Cope in his work " Crocodilians, Lizards and 

 Snakes of North America," mentions on page 843 one speci- 

 men, under No. 5505 of the Smithsonian collections, as col- 

 lected at Independence, Jackson County. The snake is of 

 common occurrence in Texas and Indian Territory and should 

 therefore be in our western counties. I have specimens only 

 from Waco, Texas, in my collection. 



6. Coluber guttatus Linnaeus. — The spotted racer. 



For three years successively I have found a young specimen 

 of this species near Pevely, Jefferson County, and curious to 

 say they were found always under a small rock on the top of 

 a large one, nearly at the same place. Last year my son had 

 the good fortune to capture a fine adult specimen, but this 

 time in the fields, though not far from the first place: — May 

 15, 1898; May 13, 1900; May 7, 1899; and May 26, 1901; 

 the adult specimen. 



