105 



and other food? Again, what influence does cultivation of the soil 

 have on the numbers of such sluggish serpents? Why do these survive, 

 while rattlesnakes and copperheads so rapidly disappear? The food of 

 these snakes is doubtless principally frogs, toads and probably mice. 

 Rev. Samuel Lockwood tells us (23, 1875, 10) that he has known them 

 to eat the heads of the common eel left on the fhore by fishermen. 



Some facts are known about its breeding habits. Troost dissected a 

 specimen and found in her 25 oval eggs, each three-fourths inch long and 

 without a calcareous covering. In a large female of the common form 

 from Veedersburg I found in oue oviduct 4 eggs, and in the other 11. 

 The hindermost egg was an inch and a quarter long and three-quarters 

 across. The eggs were covered with a tough membrane. I found no 

 embryos in any of the eggs. The snake has been regarded as ovovivip- 

 arous, but such is probably not usually, if ever, the case. We have 

 evidences that the eggs are usually laid and buried in the earth before 

 they are ready to hatch. Prof. F. W. Cragin {^2, xiii, 710) says that he 

 had 22 eggs of this snake, which had been plowed up in a sandy field 

 along Long Island Sound. One of these hatched four days afterward. 

 Another writer (23, iii, 555) states that he saw one of these snakes killed, 

 and out of a wound in its side there issued over 100 young, each about 



6 or 8 inches long. This writer believed that these snakes were ovovi- 

 viparous, and that these young had really been in the stomach of the 

 female The number of 3'ouDg in this case is certainly unusual. Another 

 author states that a "spotted spreading adder" contained 87 young, 

 each nearly 6 inches long. These statements about such large numbers 

 of eggs are undoubtedly erroneous. A nest of 27 eggs was brought to 

 the National Museum August 31. The female was near the nest and at- 

 tempted to defend it. In each of the eggs was an embryo well devel- 

 oped and about 8 inches long. The eggs did not hatch until September 



7 and 8. The egg coverings were ripped open by the egg-tooth of the 

 young snake. The young would flatten themselves when teased, and 

 some would feign death. Dr. G. B. Goode states (34-, 1873, 184) that 

 the female of this species has been reported as affording its young a hiding 

 place in her stomach. 



Heterodon simus, (Linn.). 

 Sarid Viper. 



Coluber simus, Linnaeus, 1766, 64, ed. xii, i, 216; Heterodon simus, 

 'Holbrook, 1842, 54, iv, 57, pi. 15; Baird and Girard, 1853, 6, 59; 

 Oarman, 1883, 13, 76, pi." vi, fig. 4. 



Form much that of H. platirhinos, but probably not attaining so large 

 Si size. Tail shorter, about a sixth or less of the total length. Head 



