THE SNAKES OF THE MARITIME PliOVlNCES OF CANADA. 15 



home is Eastern Asia and India, where three or four species occur; 

 yet it is a remarkable fact, taken in connection with the present 

 range of the genus, to rind our sole American species excluded 

 from the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains. It seems to be 

 essentially a denizen of the plains, meadows, swamps, and moist 

 forest country. It often takes to the water in brooks and 

 streams where it falls a victim to the voracious trout, S. fontin- 

 alis ; for the writer has many times seen it disgorged by its 

 captor, struggling on the line. After the Black Snake, B. con- 

 strictor, it is the most aquatic of our serpents, and like the 

 former's, too, its scaler are perfectly smooth, resembling in this 

 respect fish scales, being devoid of carina?, the ridges or keels, 

 characteristic of all the others. 



Form slender; head elliptical, neck not much constricted; 

 tail attenuate; anal plate, as in D. panct'itus, divided; superior 

 labials seven, inferior labials eight. In all these characters L. 

 vernUis is uniform throughout its extensive range, but like D. 

 pimrtatus it shows fewer gastrosteg'^s than to the south and west, 

 for while they aveiage with us about one hundred and twenty-two 

 or three, Haird and Girard found them bahmcing at one hundred 

 rind thirty- jour. Scales in fifteen longitudinal rows. 



Colour above uniformly green, deep or light; l)eneath yellow- 

 ish white. In s[)irits it becomes nearly blue. 



it is fairly common tliroughout the maritime iivovinces in the 

 neighborhood of brooks, ponds, marshes, and springs, and its 

 beautiful colour, Hashing in the sunlight and ever changing 

 with the undulations of the body, causing it often to seem 

 transparent, renders it always an attractive ol)ject. Like the 

 last species, it is [>erfectly harmless, but not so timid; for large 

 specimens will gracefully coil up and assume a striking atti- 

 tude. 



Bascanium constrictor T.innanis. 



Black Snake. 



This seri)ent is more freciuently designated Coluher constrictor 

 by authors, but Jioulenger divided the cosmopolitan genus Col- 

 uher into [.yo on dental characters, forming a new one, Z%meni><, 



