10 

 habitats or rainforests, the situation is less favorable. 



SUMMARY 



Ecologists have a variety of different techniques at their 

 disposal for the marking of snakes for field studies. With the 

 sophistication now present in radiotelemetry , snakes can be tracked 

 over long distances and recordings can be made for lengthy periods 

 of time, such as overwintering in hibernacula. 



The following appendix and bibliography identify the various 

 published marking techniques and the primary literature sources. 



The most widely used method for marking snakes may remain the 

 ventral and subcaudal scale clipping. It is permanent, cost- 

 efficient, and it allows the unique marking of each individual in 

 a population. This method also has no permanent ill effect on the 

 marked animals. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



I would like to thank Van Wallach (Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology, Harvard University) for his help in providing references 

 and Stephanie Ersek (Austin, Texas) for her imaginative cover 

 illustration. 



