252 THE AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 



The great variability in pattern and coloration that e.dsts among garter 

 snakes of this species has been summed up in the descriptive matter (see page 

 103) that was compiled from studies made upon more than one hundred 

 specimens from all parts of Ohio. The same description could have been 

 prepared equally well from a group of forty-one specimens (OSM 862) that 

 recently were collected in a single locality and all at approximately the same 

 time. These were taken by E. S. Thomas and Robert Goslin on Marrh 25th 

 and 26th, 1949, as the snakes were "coming out of hibernation in a restricted 

 area on a hillside in Columbus." This presumably (genetically) homogeneous 

 population sample includes snakes that are boldly spotted and some that have 

 such m^arkings obscure or absent. Some are conspicuously striped, and some 

 are not. The colors vary through the entire gamut previously recorded. 

 None, however, even remotely approaches the alm.ost uniform black coloration 

 that appears frequently in specimens from some of the counties bordering Lake 

 Erie. The group of forty-one snakes is composed chiefly of adults of average 

 dimensions, but several small ones, including young of the year, are among 

 them; none are of large size. 



Blanchard and Blanchard (1941), after conducting breeding experiments 

 among melanistic and normally-patterned sirtalis, were able to present evidence 

 indicating that "the inheritance of melanism with several specimens from 

 Toledo is inherited in simple Mendelian fashion (the factor for black being 

 recessive). . . ." They also secured data tending to show that fall matings 

 were successful; females captured in the autumn, and kept away from males, 

 produced voung at the usual time during the following summer. Since the 

 appearance of their paper, however, several persons have published notes oflFer- 

 ing proof that sperm (in other species at least) may remain viable for one or 

 m.ore years. Hence the Blanchard snakes may have mated even earlier than 

 supposed. 



Mattlin and Wood have each published a note upon a large litter of 

 Thamnophis s. sirtalis. Mattlin (1948b) recorded a female from near Cleve- 

 land that measured 960 mm. (37% in.) and which produced 51 living young 

 and 13 infertile ova on August 23, 1947. Among ten of the juveniles the 

 lengths varied from 179 mm. to 195 mm. (mean 187.2 mm.); weights varied 

 from 2 to 2.5 grams. Wood (1945) obtained 57 young on August 6, 1940, 

 from a female from Pike County that measured 914 mm. (36 in.) in length; 

 fifty-two of these varied from 169 mm. to 203 mm. (mean 188.4 mm.). 

 Wood also states (in correspondence) that an unusually large garter snake 

 from Pike County contained 75 embryos, another from Montgomery County 

 contained 30, and still another (from the latter county) gave birth to 23 

 young on July 24, 1940. 



Lagler and Salyer (1945), reporting upon specimens of sirtalis collected 

 along natural waters in Michigan, found that these snakes had eaten mostly 

 earthworms, frogs, and toads; fishes constituted only 6.2% of the food by 

 volume. In the vicinity of fish-rearing stations, however, trout amounted to 

 40 3%. Thu^ garter snakes, which are largely terrestrial near wild waters, 

 show a marked tendency to become aquatic with the increased availability of 

 fish at rearing stations 



