A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HERPETOLOGY OF 



MISSOURI.* 



Julius Hurter. 



It is only for the last few years that my son Henry, who 

 is also an enthusiast in this particular line, and I, have ex- 

 tended our excursions into Jefferson County, where we have 

 found a very interesting field in the outrunners of the Ozark 

 mountains, where we begin to encounter the hardier species 

 of the Subtropical realm which the late Professor Edw. D. 

 Cope subdivided into the Austroriparian and Sonorian sub- 

 regions. The farther south we proceed in the Ozark moun- 

 tains the more numerous become not only the species but 

 also the specimens, so that, when we reach the southern 

 slope of these mountain chains in Missouri, as we had the 

 opportunity of doing this year (but unfortunately a little 

 too late in the season), one would think he was near the Gulf 

 of Mexico, so plentiful do these animals become. 



I may call attention to the fact that the Ozark mountains, 

 up to this date, have not been well investigated in either their 

 fauna or flora. The literature is also very meager. For 

 example, Professor D. S. Jordan, in his Manual of Vertebrate 

 Animals of the Northern United States, including the dis- 

 trict north and east of the Ozarks and east of the Missouri 

 river, stops right there and leaves our mountains as a " terra 

 incognita," to science. I would like to remind you also of 

 the fact that reptiles and batrachia are not migratory, like 

 birds or mammals, and for this reason they give a clearer idea 

 of the geographical realm to which they belong. 



I will now consider unrecorded species for the fauna of 

 the State of Missouri. Besides two Rattlesnakes and the 

 Copperhead, which we encounter all over the State, we find 

 in our southern frontier counties another Pit viper, called 



* Presented to The Academy of Science of St. Louis, December 6, 1897. 



(499) 



