11 



THE SNAKES 



OF THE 



MARITIx>IE PROVINl ES 



OF 



CANADA. 



By PHiur Cox. Ph. D. 



0"^HE number of well-defined species to be found in this 

 Q^ section of Canada does not exceed five, but some vary to 

 such a degree as would enable herpetologists to recognize 

 two or more subspecies, or strongly marked varieties, within 

 the limits of one. Were an effort made, however, to assign geo- 

 graphical limits or a peculiar habitat or range to any of them, 

 it must end in foilure, for the variations are largely individual, 

 not sectional; and, although the varietal characters may exist in 

 many, they shade oft' into, or are found mingled with, others to 

 such an extent as to make a separation seemingly impossible. 

 This is esi>ecially true of the Garter and Black Snakes, which 

 furnish North America with such an abundance of closely re- 

 lated species. 



Yet in one respect three or four of our snakes, which have a 

 wide range south and west, difter strikingly from the type 

 there; I refer to the marked reduction in the number of ventral 

 scutes. These plates, in the case of the Ring-neck, D. pundatus 

 Linnseus, average here one hundred and twenty-two; in the Eastern 

 United States, according to Baird & Girard (Cat. N. Amer, Rept., 

 18o3) verified by Professor Cope, they average one hundred and 

 fijiij-threc. In our section, the Green Snake, Liopeltis vernalis De 

 Kay, has on the average one hundred and twenty-three ; l)ut the 

 authorities mentioned above assign it one hundred and thirty- four. 

 Fifteen specimens of the Garter Snake, Eutsenia sirtalis Linnaeus, 

 collected between Maine and Mississippi, furnished Baird and 



