SHORT STUDIES OF SNAKES.. 291 



hundreds of people are ever ready to affirm they have 

 occasionally seen, and by which they have been chased ; 

 but which, strangely enough, has never fallen into the 

 hands of a naturalist. The " red-bellied " snake men- 

 tioned by Kalm may be any one of three or more species 

 that have a red or ruddy belly. I suppose, however, that 

 he refers to our common water-snake, a species that has 

 afforded me much entertainment while watching it in its 

 chosen haunts. 



Kalm, it will be noticed, believed it to be a poisonous 

 species. This, of course, arose from simple hearsay, as 

 he evidently was too prudent to test the matter personally. 

 Even at present it is generally supposed to be venomous, 

 although its harmless nature has been noted by every 

 herpetologist. If facts of this character, embodying as 

 they do much useful knowledge, were taught in our pub- 

 lic schools, as they ought to be, we should be spared much 

 nonsense. Only the other day I read in a local news- 

 paper that "a large, poisonous water-adder, measuring 

 over seven feet, was killed near the mill-pond. It is 

 supposed to have bitten several cows." Here are two 

 errors, to call them by no harsher name, to start with. 

 In the first place, the snake is not poisonous ; and in the 

 second, no one of them ever grew to be seven feet in 

 length. As to biting the cows, that is not improbable ; 

 but the wounds inflicted were not so serious as the bites 

 of the blood-thirsty green flies that worry our horses and 

 cattle throughout the summer months. 



The common water-snake is strictly an aquatic species ; 

 not that it can not and does not freely leave the water, for 

 this it frequently does, though the shallow, weedy brooks, 

 the deep mill-ponds, and even the river itself, are, essen- 

 tially, its homes. In such localities, it is the active, alert, 

 lithesome serpent that I never tire of watching. 



