COLUBER SIPEDON. 101 



in its habits, of which indeed it seems the northern representative; it feeds on 

 frogs, toads, &ic., and is commonly found in damp places in or near water; yet I 

 have never seen them resting on the low branches of trees that overhang the 

 water, as is usual in our southern Water Snakes. 



Geographical Distribution. This serpent is common in the stagnant or slow 

 moving waters of the northern or middle states; I have seen them on the 

 Atlantic border from New Hampshire to Delaware. 



General Remarks. I have often doubted whether this serpent were the 

 Coluber sipedon of Kalm; for his description is so short and imperfect as to 

 characterize no one animal with certainty; and besides, imperfect as it is, it by 

 no means applies in general to the serpent now under consideration, as may be 

 seen by a reference to the colours above. The only way in which we can 

 reconcile Kalni's description with the animal is to suppose that he observed such 

 snakes as had the transverse bars indistinctly marked, which not unfrequently 

 happens in old animals; but then these bars may even then be seen if the skin be 

 carefully washed; or he might have seen a rare variety of the Water Snake, the 

 C. Cauda shistosus of Harlan, which Dr. Pickering has observed in the vicmity 

 of Philadelphia. 



