LACERTILIA 



243 



There are many enemies of snakes. Prominent among them 

 are kites, hawks, shrikes, and other birds of prey, hogs, and 

 man. 



Family Colu'bridae includes all our common harmless snakes, as the 

 garter snake, " hoop snake," water snake, green snake, black snake or 

 blue racer, blowing viper, and others. They are all perfectly harmlesSj 

 though they make great pretensions with their terrifying appearance or 

 bluff as to what they might do if you came too close. 



Family Crotaridae includes the rattlesnake, copperhead, and water 

 moccasin. All of these are poisonous and to be feared. The rattlesnake 

 gives warning, not so the deadly copperhead and water moccasin. Hap- 

 pily for man, civilization is driving out these dangerous reptiles. 



Family Elap'idae is another family of venomous, chiefly East Indian, 

 snakes. There is one species (Fig. 198), the "bead snake" (Flaps fvVvius), 

 found from Virginia to Arkansas and south. Jordan describes it as "jet 

 black with about seventeen broad crimson rings, each bordered with yellow 

 and spotted below with black, a yellow occipital band, tail with yellow 

 rings." It is surely an example of warning colors which one will do well 

 to heed. A non-venomous species closely resembles it. 



Library References. — Gadow's "Amphibia and Reptiles" — Ophidia. 

 Read of snakes of other lands. Baskett and Ditmar's " Story of Am- 

 phibians and Reptiles"; Parker and Haswell on "Reptilia"; Ditmars' 

 "Reptiles of the World." 



ORDER III. LACERTILIA 



Lizards are reptiles with a distinct head, a snake-hke body, a 

 tail generally longer than the body, and four short, nearly 



Fig. 199. — .Skeleton of a lizard: sp, Spinous processes, which in the tor- 

 toise are flattened into plates; r, ribs; s, shoulder-bone; a, upper arm; e, 

 elbow; fa, forearm; h, hip-bone; th, thigh-bone; k, knee; I, bones of the 

 leg; q, quadrate bone between upper and lower jaw. (From Holder.) 



equal limbs, or no functional limbs, as in the so-called " glass 

 snake " or " joint snake." Their locomotion is aided by a 



