250 THE AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 



ribbon snake is abundant in all marshy and swampy places." Several tribu- 

 taries of Sandy Creek flow southward from glaciated territory, and they prob- 

 ably serve as readily accessible migration routes across the glacial boundary. 



At the time when the Reptiles of Ohio first went to press, the absence of 

 records from the till plains of the southwestern counties might have been 

 attributed to inadequate field work. But this could not be claimed today. 

 The region recently has been intensively collected by several of the younger 

 herpetologists, working out of Dayton and Oxford, and not a single ribbon 

 snake has been encountered. The sole record for the entire area is the one 

 published by Morse (1904) for Hamilton, Butler County. Unforumately, 

 his specimen is no longer extant and its identity cannot be checked. One 

 might speculate upon whether Thamnophis saiir:tus has always been missing 

 or whether the drainage ditch, followed by the plow, has destroyed its habitat. 

 Certainly in southwestern Ohio this snake is now absent, extremely rare, or 

 highlv local in its distribution. It might be pointed out that much of this 

 area lies within the province of the Illinoian and early Wisconsin drift, which, 

 in the absence of boreal habitats and perhaps in other ways, may offer less 

 favorable conditions for this species than the late Wisconsin drift farther north. 



Evidence of the ribbon snake's former great abundance in part of north- 

 western Ohio is contributed by Ehrhart who, writing about Paulding County 

 where he has long been resident, states, "When I was a boy we lived about 

 3i/^ miles west of Antwerp, about seven years after they had blown up the 

 'Six-mile Reservoir' and drained the Black Swamp. We cleared up some of 

 that swampland and it was alive with snakes, mostly garter, spotted water, and 

 ribbon snakes, with the last by far the most common. Since then I haven't 

 seen a single ribbon until about ten years ago \circa 1938}, and then I had 

 my hands' on one in the east part of the county, but it got away." 



Here, in Paulding County, is indication of a profound change effected as a 

 result of mankind's activities. Possibly intensive human utilization of the land 

 in southwestern Ohio may have produced results of a similar nature. 



Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis (Linnaeus) 

 Eastern Garter Snake 



(Page 102; maps 25 and 63; plate II, fig. 3) 



Comment has already been made (p. 249) on the proposal to shift the 

 scientific names of the garter snakes. 



New Ohio records for this species are as follows: 



Adams County: Green Twp. (SL 417). Allen County: Bluff ton (OSM 723); 

 1 mi. NW of Bluffton (OSM 722); 2 mi. NW of Bluffton (OSM 707). Ashta- 

 bula County: Dorset (CMNH 326); 5 mi. N of Geneva (CM 14034-6). Athens 

 County: Athens (OUVC 1328, 2368); I mi. E of Athens (OUVC 2259); 3 mi. 

 E of Athens (OUVC 2322); 6 mi. W of Athens (OUVC 1329). AuGLAiZE CoUN- 

 ty: Sec. 3, St. Mary's Twp. (UMMZ 98026). BuTLER County: Hamilton (OSM 

 532): New Miami (MU 17); Oxford (MU II); Reily (GF). Carroll County: 

 Amsterdam (OUVC 1285-6). ChAMPAICN CoUNTV: Mad River at West Liberty 

 (UMMZ 89892). Clinton County: (DPLM 649-50.44). Cuyahog-\ County: 

 Cleveland (CMNH 129). Darke County: (USNM 128924); Liberty Tvp. (OSM 



