388 KANSAS UNIVERSITY SCIENCE BULLETIN. 



making a whirring sound. If it be among dry leaves or sand, 

 the noise resembles the whir of a rattler. 



The snake mentioned above ate nothing during its captivity. 

 Mice, birds, eggs, toads, etc., were placed in the cage with it, 

 but it paid no attention to them. In their wild state these 

 snakes live upon birds, birds' eggs, and vermin of various 

 kinds. They destroy more birds' eggs than any other snakes 

 found in Kansas. They climb among the branches of trees in 

 search of thera, and, if they are fortunate enough to find so 

 many, a single individual will devour ten or twelve eggs, as 

 large as those of a quail, in one day. Professor Hay (16. 118) 

 states that he took eight mice, six of them young, from the 

 stomach of an individual four feet four inches in length. One, 

 five feet long, brought to this laboratory this spring, had three 

 young rabbits as large as rats in its stomach. 



Doctor Stejneger (16. 119) states that the Black Snake is 

 oviparous. Several snake eggs taken from a stump near the 

 Potomac river were opened at the National Museum and found 

 to contain developed young of this species. 



A specimen that I had in this laboratory molted three times 

 during six months of captivity. For four or five days before 

 molting it was sick. It was entirely blind during the same 

 time. It was very sluggish and struggled little when handled. 



Occurs throughout the eastern part of the state, but probably 

 not west of the Republican river. It has been reported from 

 Doniphan, Brown, Nemaha, Pottawatomie, Geary, Jefferson, 

 Shawnee, Montgomery, Miami, Neosho, Greenwood, Sumner, 

 Douglas, Riley, Wyandotte, Lyon and Franklin counties. 



Coluber vulpinus Baird and Girard. 



Fox Snake. 



Scoiophis vulpinus Baird and Girard, Cat. X. .\mer. Kept., Pt. I, Serp., 1853, 



p. 75. 

 Coluber vulpinus Cope, Check-list N. Amer. Batr. Rept., 1875, p. 39. 



Internasals much smaller than prefrontals. Rostral broad. 

 Parietals broad, rather short, longer than the frontal, shorter 

 than the muzzle anterior to the frontal plate. Eyes center 

 over the junction of the fourth and fifth labials. Upper labials 

 eight, seventh one of the largest. Anteriorly the first three or 

 four rows of scales are smooth, then they are obsoletely cari- 



