FAMILY COLUBERID®. 35 
FAMILY COLUBERIDE. 
Serpents with no venomous fangs. No anal appendices. 
GENUS COLUBER. Linneus. 
Head with large polygonal plates. Body with rhomboidal, carinated or smooth scales. 
Abdomen with single broad transverse plates ; beneath the tail, double. Jaws with simple 
teeth, uniform in size. Hybernate. Carnivorous. 
A very numerous genus, even with all the dismemberments which have followed a more 
critical examination of their characters. In this State we enumerate five species. 
THE BLACK SNAKE. 
CoLUBER CONSTRICTOR. 
PLATE X. FIG. 20. — (STATE COLLECTION.) 
Coluber constrictor, Lin. GMEL. 
Le Lien. Bonn. Ophiologie, p. 15. 
Le Couleuvre lien. Davp. Hist. des Reptiles, Vol. 6. p. 402. 
Coluber constrictor. Hanruan, Med. and Phys. Researches, p. 112. 
The Common Black Snake. Storer, Mass. Report, p. 225. ‘ 
C. constrictor. Hotproox, N. Am. Herpetology, Vol. 3, p. 69, pl. 15. Kirtianp, Zool. Ohio, 
Characteristics. Black; slate-colored beneath; chin and throat white. Scales smooth. 
Abdominal plates 175 - 185; caudal, 85-90. Length 3 - 6 feet. 
Description. Head rather smaller than the body, which begins to taper from the vent. 
Rostral plates convex, prominent; the first subquadrate, smaller than the second, which are 
irregularly five-sided, the central plate largest. Upper labial plates sixteen. Gular plates 
five pair, the three anterior elongated. Eyes moderately vertical. Nostrils large, vertical, 
placed between the first and second pair. Body covered with smooth rhomboidal scales ; 
beneath, with broad entire plates ; beyond the vent, the caudal plates are in pairs, occasionally 
interrupted by an entire plate. Length of the tail, compared to the total length, is as one to 
four nearly. 
Color. A uniform shining bluish black above ; margin of the jaws, chin and throat white. 
Belly usually slate-colored, or bluish white. Young, spotted and speckled with black and 
white above. 
Abdominal plates) <i s-nienca-sss-s=- 180. 
Candaliplates aon ease 45 eiesisimas 88. 
Weng thaseerser eters) Vrtoiatorsicas 36°0 — 85°0. 
