The Rat Snakes or Colubers 



of the muscles. The good this species does in destroying the 

 smaller, injurious creatures of the fields, should cause it to be 

 the recognised friend of the farmer. One snake is worth a dozen 

 traps, for the reptile prowls into the burrows and nests of rats and 

 mice and eats the entire brood. 



Like all of the Colubers, the Fo.x Snake deposits a considerable 

 number of eggs, generally in the hollow of a rotting stump, and 

 leaves them without further ado, to hatch within six or eight 

 weeks' time. The eggs gradually increase in size by absorbing 

 the moisture of the wood pulp in which they are deposited. 

 Just prior to hatching, an egg is a third or half larger than when 

 it was laid. (See Fig.) One of the writer's specimens deposited 

 12 eggs on the ist of July. They were adhesive in a single 

 cluster. These eggs began hatching on the 21st of .August, and 

 all had not hatched until about ten days later. The female speci- 

 men was three and a half feet in length and in proportion to 

 her size the young were ver\' large. The accompan\nng photo- 

 graph of a specimen of this brood (beside a rule) illustrates the 

 prof)ortions. The eggs were hatched by placing them in damp, 

 sphagnum moss and keeping them in an ordinary room tempera- 

 ture. 



As a captive the Fox Snake is hardy and subsists indefinitely 

 upon a diet of mice and sparrows. 



EMORY'S COLUBER 

 Coluber emoryi, (B. & G.) 



Smallest of the North American Colubers and the most 

 slender. So fine is the carination of the scales that they appear 

 perfectly smooth unless closely examined; only a few rows on 

 the back are keeled. 



Colouration. — Ashy-gray, \^^th a series of rich brown or 

 olive-brown blotches on the back, separated by intervals of one 

 or two scales. These blotches are narrowly margined with black. 

 There is a smaller series of alternating blotches on the side and 

 beneath this a yet smaller series. The abdomen is yellowish- 

 white, with dull gray blotches. 



From behind the eye there is a dark band extending past the 

 angk of the mouth to the neck. Immediately in front of the eyes 

 is a dark bar exietiding across the head. There are tiv elongated 

 blotches from the back portion of the bead to the mck. 



298 



