I 12 THE AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 



The food of the copperhead is varied but consists chiefly of insects and 

 small mammals (Surface, 1906, 188) . This author also found a snake, spar- 

 row and two salamanders in the stomachs of specimens he examined. A 

 specimen in the Ohio State Museum from Licking County contained a half 

 grown hairy-tailed mole (Parascalops breweri) it had swallowed tail first; one 

 in the Carnegie Museum from Washington County had devoured a seventeen- 

 year cicada which worked its way through the neck of the snake, causing the 

 latter's death. 



Captives ate mice and sparrows but none took frogs of the several species 

 which were offered. Ditmars (1936, 334), however, states that "during the 

 spring and fall it (the copperhead) is fond of frogs." Observations on speci- 

 mens in the Toledo Zoo showed that large and active prey was bitten and 

 released. After the venom had taken its effect the copperhead hunted its 

 victim, usually examined it carefully with the tips of the tongue and then 

 swallowed it head first. Smaller prey was bitten and held in the jaws, while 

 such inoff-ensive victims as newly-born mice were engulfed without the fangs 

 being used except in helping to work the food down the throat. 



Copperheads bear living young. A female, 27i/^ inches in length (but 

 with the tail severed near the anus), collected in Perry Township, Pike 

 County, August 27, 1931, gave birth to ten young September 3, 1931. These 

 varied in length from B^/g to 9 ^I^q inches. Another female, 25 inches in 

 length, taken June 27, 1931, in Green Township, Monroe County, bore six 

 young September 10, 1931, which varied from 9 3/^g to 9% inches in length. 

 The young of both groups shed their skins from 5 to 10 days after birth; 

 both before and after shedding they were paler and greyer in color than the 

 adults. A female from Brinkhaven, Knox County, in the Ohio State Museum 

 contains ten large embryos. 



Gloyd (1933) in his studies on the breeding habits and young of the 

 copperhead gives the number in a litter as from 2 to 9 and the dates of birth 

 as from August 9 to September 29 inclusive. 



Sistrurus catenatus catenatus (Rafinesque) 

 Massasauga; Swamp Rattler; Black Snapper 



Description. — A stout bodied snake which may attain a length of three 

 feet. Largest adult Ohio specimen { $), 30^/^ inches in length (exclusive 

 of the rattle) ; smallest newly born juvenile, 7% inches. Head broad, trian- 

 gular in shape and distinct from the neck. Eye moderately small and lying 

 directly below the overhanging supraocular; pupil elliptical. Head plates 

 normal and occupying, collectively, a roughly oval area. Two nasals, the 

 nostril largely in the postnasal. Two elongate preoculars, the upper in contact 

 with the postnasal and the lower separated from the postnasal by a small 

 rhomboidal or trapezoidal loreal. A deep pit in the loreal region. Post- 

 oculars 3 or 4 (rarely 5); a subocular present. Upper labials most often 12, 

 less frequently 11 or 13; separated from the scales surrounding the orbit by a 



