SNAKES. 257 
the ventrals, which are rounded, number from 222 to 260; the 
sub-caudals are in pairs, from sixty-eight to eighty-nine, and 
the anal scale is divided. The colouring of the Leopard Snake 
is so difficult to describe that I again venture to quote Mr. 
Boulenger, who says that C. leopardinus is ‘‘greyish or pale 
brown above, with a dorsal series of dark brown or reddish 
black-edged transverse spots and a lateral alternating series of 
smaller black spots, or with two dark brown black-edged stripes, 
bordering a yellowish vertebral stripe, usually a f- shaped dark 
marking on the occiput and the nape, a crescentric black band 
from eye to eye, an oblique black band from the post-oculars to the 
angle of the mouth, and a black spot below the eye; lower parts 
white, checkered with black or nearly entirely black.” *The 
striped specimen is known as C. quadrilineatus, Pallas. 
The Leopard Snake grows to nearly 4ft. in length. It isa 
native of Southern Italy, Malta, Dalmatia, the Crimea, and Asia 
Minor. 
The Four-rayed Snake (Coluber quatuor-lineatus, (Fig. 73) 
is the largest and the most easily tamed of all the European 
Snakes. It is, indeed, a very beautiful and gentle reptile, 
and most suitable for confinement, where it is sure to make 
itself a great favourite. It is a constrictor, and the facility with 
which it is able to use its coils has been referred to in a former 
article. 
The first Snake of this species I ever possessed astonished me 
greatly by its wonderful quickness of movement. I had not 
had it many days, when, to see if it would feed, I placed a live 
sparrow in its Vivarium; and before I quite realised what had 
happened, I saw that the bird was crushed to death in the reptile’s 
coils. This most active Snake had seized and constricted its prey 
so rapidly that my eyes quite failed to follow its movements. It 
held the bird quite tightly in its embraces for a minute or two, 
and then proceeded to slowly swallow its victim. After this I 
found that this particular Snake was so ready a feeder that it 
would, without hesitation, take a dead bird or mouse from my 
fingers. This Snake once escaped, and was lost for four or five 
days. A parishioner of mine, a farmer, found it by the side of 
a hedge more than a mile away from its home, and brought it 
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