TURTLES AND SNAKES 



Colubrine or Harmless Snakes — Coluhridce 



Northern water snake, "moccasin," banded water snake, 

 Natrix sipedon, subspecies sipedon. — This common water 

 snake of the northern states lives in sunny hollows watered 

 by little streams, generally lying partly on the bank and partly 

 across the stream bed. Sometimes it is found on the borders 

 of larger streams and ponds. 



It is a heavily built snake, dingy dark brown, sometimes 

 reddish, and of morose appearance; its undersides are 

 spotted with reddish and black. In young snakes and 

 those which have recently shed their skins, the back is crossed 

 by broad brown bands separated by narrower bands of light 

 brown; on the sides the dark bands taper and the light ones 

 become broader (Fig. 314). 



Habits, habitat. — One snake or a group of two or three often 

 basks in the sunshine, hanging from bushes over the water, 

 dropping into it when disturbed or slipping in to capture fish 

 or frogs. In warm days of early March water snakes begin 

 sunning themselves along small streams. They are cold 

 then and move slowly, even allowing themselves to be picked 

 up without protest, but when they are brought into the 

 warmth of a house they soon become agile enough to display 

 their natural ugliness of disposition. They will strike vicious- 

 ly at anything which comes near them, and although they are 

 not poisonous they should be kept in a securely screened box. 

 Although this snake is sometimes called "water moccasin" 

 it is not related to the poisonous true water moccasin or 

 "cotton mouth" of the south. 



Food. — -Water snakes live very largely upon fish, frogs, 

 toads and water insects but they do not neglect the meadow 

 mice and shrews. 



Breeding habits. — In the latter part of August or early in 

 September they give birth to living young, the average num- 



405 



