Allen.] 172 [l)oeember2, 



the Springfield Museum have been mainly accumulateil. In the fol- 

 lowing pages due credit is given for these contributions. In the 

 preparation of tlie notices of the extra-limital species, I have made 

 free use of all I could find ])ublished on the subject, and have also 

 received valuable aid from Mr. F. W. Putnam of Salem, all of which 

 will be found duly accredited. 



In Massachusetts, as perhaps generally elsewhere in our country, 

 all the species of these classes, but especially of the Reptiles proi)er, 

 apjiear to be gradually, but very perceptibly, decreasing in numbers, 

 as they doubtless have been ever since the country began to be settled 

 by Eurojieans. This seems to result principally from two causes. 

 First, in respect to the snakes, the almost universal antipathy to 

 these animals, which leads most peo])le to destroy every one that 

 comes within their reach; though, with two exceptions, and those spe- 

 cies of very restricted distribution, all our Massachusetts species are 

 among the most harmless of animals; second, the changes effected in 

 their habitats through the necessary operations resulting from agri- 

 cultural and sanitary improvements, as the draining of marshes and 

 the burning over of newly cleared lands, and the destruction of the 

 forests. The draining of ponds and marshes is the jiriucipal cause 

 ojjerating to reduce the numbers of the Batrachians generally, but 

 more especially of the frogs and salamanders, and also the aquatic 

 turtles; the removal of the forests also effects the diminution of the 

 salamanders, while the burning every year of considerable tracts of 

 newly cleared land destroys a great number of snakes and land tur- 

 tles. The general instinctive dislike to snakes is tending rapidly to 

 their extinction; species that were comparatively common at Spring- 

 field ten to fifteen years since, are now (juite scarce, and must soon 

 become great rarities, if not indeed quite extinct. The effect of fires 

 in reducing the number of the terrestrial reptiles, as the annual burn- 

 ing over of the prairies at the West, continued for so many centuries, 

 seems generally under-estimated, though it seems to be a sufficiently 

 adequate explanation of the scarcity of snakes and land turtles in 

 these districts. 



The first attempt at an enumeration of the rept'.les of JMassachu- 

 setts seems to have been the Catalogue of Dr. D. S. C. II. Smith of 

 Sutton, contained in Dr. Hitchcock's Geological Ri^port of 1835, 

 which, as Dr. Storer has justly remarked, was evidently drawn up with 

 care, and embraced most of the species found in the State, and also 

 a few names of nominal and e.xtra-limital species. Dr. D. II. Storer 

 soon followed with his, in many respects, admirable E,ei)ort to the 



