76 
About the first week in August the female 
seeks a suitable place to bring forth her young, 
usually sixteen in number. 
Of course you will understand, that my 
statements relative to the life-habits of snakes, 
as I have observed them, apply to the general 
rule; but I have also witnessed rare and ex- 
ceptional cases in the different habits of my 
pets. Now, though garter snakes generally 
bring forth their young in the early part of 
August and the number to a birth seldom ex- 
ceeds eighteen, yet I have witnessed peculiar 
cases of birth as late in the season as the mid- 
dle of October, and one of my large female 
garter snakes had a peculiar and strangely un- 
usual experience of double birth that is worthy 
of record. Early in my spring rambles I cap- 
tured a large specimen of garter snake. I put 
this in my ‘snake box’ and after a few days 
witnessed it mating with a smaller garter snake. 
About the middle of the following August, as I 
fully expected it to do, it gave birth to sixteen 
active baby snakes. After this experience I 
was much interested in it because of its abnor- 
mally large size. Day after day it seemed to 
grow till it was exceptionally large and round, 
and as I did not notice any unusually greedy 
behavior on its part, but rather noted that it 
was clumsy in its action and ate but rarely, I 
became much interested in finding out the 
cause of its abnormal size. Finally it became 
so plump and unwieldy as to be hardly able 
