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toads and frogs, the crawling insects, are so fre- 
quently either disregarded by Nature-loving 
souls, or despised by the average mortal, that 
our knowledge of their life habits is meagre 
indeed, yet every intelligent person must admit 
that repugnance and prejudice in nowise justify 
ignorance of Nature or anything else. We are 
the losers when such sentiments prevent our 
knowing the characters and purposes of the 
obnoxious creatures in Nature’s extensive 
realms. Now let me convince you, from these 
absolutely reliable notes, largely the results of 
my own personal observations, how really in- 
teresting and also instructive are the life habits 
of our common snakes. 
Karly in the Spring my attention was drawn 
to my real ignorance of the complete life habits 
of even our most common snakes. I at once 
gave the subject careful consideration and I was 
amazed to learn how few observations I had 
made of the life habits of these creatures dur- 
ing my years of active work in Nature’s wide 
domain. I decided to procure specimens of 
different species of our common snakes, and 
confine them in comfortable quarters to study 
their life habits, Petro built several commod- 
ious “snake boxes” and in a short time I se- 
cured several individuals of the different spe- 
cles, common in our vicinity. Other species 
not to be found in our territory I secured in my 
“bunts” for specimens of Nature’s wonders. 
Sometimes these rambles in search of objects of 
