THE REPTILES OF OHIO 227 



So many king snakes have now been obtained from Scioto County (west 

 of the Scioto River) that the species can almost he designated as common in 

 that portion of the state. 



Some additional habitat notes are available for this interesting Ohio snake. 

 The two specimens in the Ohio Uni\'ersity Vertebrate Collection were taken 

 in or near the open marshy "'meadow" below White's Gulch; one of them 

 was plowed out of the ground (May 20, 1940) . Rausch obtained two in the 

 Rock Run area, both in rather dense wo'>dland: one wis encountered when a 

 slab pile was torn apart and the other "was found one morning lying in a dirt 

 road." Duellman secured his specimen in the Shawnee State Forest as it was 

 crossing a road flanked by a grove of pines. Johnson has encountered king 

 snakes (many of them DOR) in a variety of habitats which may be summa- 

 rized as follows: In weeds along state highway; at the edge of blue giass 

 pastures; in or near cultivated fields; near woods; along a stream; and under 

 a rock at roadside. 



Four of the five new museum specimens are males. Scale counts made 

 upon them (and upon the single female) fall well within the ranges of varia- 

 tion indicated on page 64, e.xcept for the ventral counts in males. The^e, in a 

 total of fourteen specimens (including those previously available for study) 

 vary from 199 to 214, and have a mean of 205.9. 



A specimen 98 cm. in length and weighing 224 grams devoured a milk 

 snake {Lampropeltis d. triangulum) measuring 82 cm. and weighing 105 

 grams on the day of the king snake's capture. 



A gravid female, collected on May 30, 1949, laid eleven eggs on June 21, 

 1949. 



Lampropeltis dol'tata triangulum (Lacepede) 

 Eastern Milk Snake 



(Page 66; maps 15 and 52; plate 10, fig. 1) 



Klauber (1948, 10) has presented evidence for reinstating the Linnaean 

 name (Coluber doliatus) which was long in use for the members of the milk 

 snake group. For detailed arguments concerning this taxonomic change, 

 Klauber's paper should be consulted, but the essence of his reasoning is as 

 follows: He believes that doliatus. contrary to Stejneger (1918, 99), is identi- 

 fiable and that the name is applicable to the scarlet king snake (formerly 

 Lampropeltis elapsoides) . Thus, the latter form becomes Lampropeltis doliata 

 doliata, and the various races of milk snakes fall in line as subspecies. Recent- 

 ly it has been demonstrated that doliata is subspecifically related to triangulum 

 through temporalis, the coastal plain race (Conant, 1943b). 



It is now known that the eastern milk snake does not occur so far to the 

 southeast as is indicated on the inset map (page 67) . Old records from the 

 southern coastal plain and piedmont have proved to be in error, and it can be 

 shown that triangulum. in the South, is apparently confined to the mountains 

 (Conant, op. cit.). Below Maryland the range should be amended to e.xtend 



