83 



the breeding season, and that it will attack persons who may pass it, even 

 at a distance of several steps. Its tail quivers with rage, making a quick, 

 vibratory motion, which among dry leaves sounds not unlike the whir of 

 the rattlesnake. It will even descend trees in or.ler to attack an enemy 

 who may tease it. He never knew one to try to twine itself about the 

 legs, as it is commonly supposed to do. 



Besides eating such creatures as have been already mentioned, the 

 black-snake sometimes attacks and devours other snakes. Mr. F. W- 

 Cragin (^2, xii, 820) states that he found a black-snake swallowing a 

 striped snake, Eutainia sirtalis, which he had killed the day before. The 

 black-snake was 42, the striped-snake 22 inches long. This was a case in 

 which the reptile was driven to partaking of cold victuals. Prof. A. E. 

 Verrill, of Yale College, writes ()2^, iii, 158) that a student of Yale 

 caught a large black-snake, and in bringing it home alive by the neck 

 smothered it so that it became sick and vomited up a copperhead snake 

 two feet long and in a nearly perfect condition. Soon afterward this was 

 followed by a good-sized frog. Prof. Verrill supposes that the black-snake 

 caught the copperhead while it was trying to swallow the frog; but this 

 supposition is by no means necessary. Black-snakes are known to attack 

 and destroy rattlesnakes in open fight. The black-snake is said to circle 

 around the rattlesnake until the latter becomes confused or thrown off his 

 guard, and then to spring suddenly upon the poisonous reptile, encircle 

 him in its folds, and squeeze him to death. Dr. Elliott Coues (.9, 4, 269) 

 speaks of the hostility existing between the black-snake and the rattle- 

 snake. In one case reported the black-snake threw two or three coils of 

 its tail behind the rattlesnake's head and several others further back, and 

 then, by a powerful muscular effort, tore the rattlesnake in two. When 

 the black-snake has thus triumphed he has a right to a full meal. They 

 are known to eat other species of snakes (23, ii, 186). When one snake 

 swallows another the head is taken into the mouth first. A snake can 

 swallow another almost as large as itself. 



H. A. Brous, writing (22, xvi, 566) of the habits of some western 

 snakes, says that this species and some others have the habit of swal- 

 lowing whole eggs, and that it is no unusual occurrence to find such 

 snakes with the entire contents of quails' , prairie hens' , and domestic 

 fowls' nests in their capacious stomachs.^ With a little trouble they 

 may be compelled to disgorge the ingesta unbroken. Miss Hopley, in 

 her interesting book on snakes, says that these snakes will eat eggs, and 

 that they will drink milk and eat cream. But when people tell us that 

 they will suck the cows we must draw the line broadly and distinctly. 



In the fall, and sometimes probably also in the spring, these snakes 

 collect together often in large numbers, and we hear occasionally of 

 ^'balls'' of snakes having been seen. Brons, cited above, says that the 

 iemale of the ' ' Racer ' ' is the larger, and not so graceful in form or 



