112 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
paler hue. The line of intersection of the lighter color with the 
coppery tints of the top begins behind the eye and runs to the 
angle of the mouth. Beneath, the body is pinkish white, with 
two rows of reddish-brown blotches; the scales are keeled: the 
pupil of the eye is elliptical.: 
Although the head of this serpent is triangular and distinct 
from the neck, the general appearance of the reptile would not 
immediately lead the uninitiated to class it as a poisonous snake. 
Several of our local serpents are quite as heavy in body as the 
FIG. 17. COPPERHEAD SNAKE 
formidable Copperhead. The Milk Snake, the Hog-nosed Snake 
and the Water Snake are sometimes confounded with the Copper- 
head, partly on account of a similarity of pattern, and partly on 
account of the stout bodies of the last two species. From the 
Milk Snake the Copperhead may be at once distinguished by its 
keeled scales; from the Hog-nosed Snake and the Water Snake 
by the arrangement of the plates under the tail.? Beginning 
from the vent, these broad plates in the harmless reptiles are in 
two rows; in the Copperhead they are arranged in one row, ex- 
tending across the underside of the tail like the plates of the 
belly, with the exception (in some specimens) of a few scattered, 
divided plates near the tip of the tail. From all the harmless 
snakes the Copperhead may be distinguished by the presence of a 
1 The eyes of all of our harmless snakes have round pupils. 
2 The sub-caudal plates of all the harmless snakes are in two rows. 
