396 BREEDING HABITS OF SNAKES—HAY. 
9 inches farther back. Several of these eges are lying apparently loose 4 
in the body cavity. It might be supposed that they had just left the 
ovary and were abont to enter the oviduct; but they are surrounded 
each with a covering nearly as thick and tough as that of the egg of 
the Heterodon. Could these eggs have been in the oviduects and then 
squeezed out into the body cavity during the time of being entwined 
with the male? The thickness of the egg covering makes it appear to 
me highly probable that the eggs are destined to be laid before the 
young will be mature enough for independent existence.* 
Some years ago, in midsummer, I found a number of the eggs of the 
house snake which had been deposited in a pile of stable manure. This 
was in Bureau county, Ill. No record was kept of the number of the 
eves, but a few of them (U.S. Nat. Mus., No. 17955) were preserved in 
alcohol. When found, the eggs were glued together into one mass. 
Each egg is 2 inches long and nearly an inch and a quarter in the short 
diameter. On the outside is found a thick, leathery, yellow covering, be- 
neath which is a much thinner coat. From one of these eggs I have 
taken a young snake which measures 103 inches in length. Attached 
to this embryo is a considerable mass of yolk, a condition which indicates 
that the embryo is not ready for hatching. Nevertheless, all the generie 
and specific characters are well shown. There is a well-developed egg 
tooth. The intromittent organs are everted in the specimen examined. 
Each consists of a rather slender and twisted basal stalk, at the end of — 
which is the swollen glans. This is acorn-shaped at the base, but termi- 
nates, at the distal end, in two blunt lobes. The base of the glans is 
densely spinose, the remainder reticulately papillose. The seminal 
eroove winds around the basal stalk and terminates at the tip of one of 
the terminal lobes, the larger one.t 
Concerning the breeding habits of the black-racer, Bascanion con- 
strictor, I find little in print. It is well known that the young differ 
markedly from the adults, being decidedly spotted. Dr. Weinland, as 
already stated, described the egg-tooth. In one female, taken near 
*Since the above has gone to press, I have had the opportunity, April 29, of dis- 
secting a recently captured female, the length of which was 4 feet 4 inches. The — 
ovaries lie in the region situated about two-thirds the distance from the head to the 
vent. Each oviduct ends close to the corresponding ovary. It seems evident, there- 
fore, that at least some of the eggs of the specimen described above are really lying © 
loose in the body cavity. Inthe specimen dissected, the ovarian eggs are very imima- 
ture, none of them exceeding about a quarter of an inch in length. It may be of 
some interest to add that this female had the anterior three-fourths of the body 
ornamented with blotches of a decided red color, the red occupying both the surfaces 
of the scales and the skin between them, The blotches were separated by seales 
which were partly yellow. Soon after death a great part of the red disappeared. 
The stomach contained eight wild mice, six of them young. 
tI am able to state that Coluber obsoletus is oviparous. Mr. Thomas Marron, of the — 
National Museum, early in April, 1889, collected a number of snake eggs in a hollow — 
stuinp near the Potomac River. They were opened and found to contain fully de-— 
veloped young of this species, (U.S. Nat. Mus., No. 15334).—Leonhard Stejneger. 
