Our Natural Enemies. 193 



they are almost the first to roll out of their holes, where 

 they have lain dormant in balls or clusters during the cold 

 winter months. Though easily excited, and striking quickly, 

 yet their bite is little more than a scratch. Their appetites 

 are now quite vigorous, and they have been seen to chase a 

 toad for more than fifty feet over a gravelly road, effecting its 

 capture. They are remarkably prolific, and their numbers 

 about pools are sometimes astonishing. It would seem that 

 they are viviparous as well as oviparous, from the fact 

 that some young ones have been free and others in sacs in 

 the abdomen of the mother. With a brood of forty or fifty 

 young, which a single female has been known to produce, it 

 would seem that the Striped Snake would have a difficult 

 time in protecting her offspring by taking them into her 

 mouth. They have this habit, however, as abundance of 

 evidence could be adduced to show. One witness observed 

 a Striped Snake upon a hillside, and noticed something mov- 

 ing about her head, which proved to be young snakes. He 

 counted twenty little ones from one and a half to two inches 

 long. Led by curiosity, he made a move towards the spot, 

 when the old one opened her mouth, and they went in out of 

 sight. He then stepped back and waited, and in a few min- 

 utes they began to come out. Another witness came across 

 a female with some young ones near her, who, perceiving 

 him, uttered a loud hiss, and the young ones jumped down 

 her throat, when she instantly glided away to a place of con- 

 cealment beneath a huge heap of stones. 



The Black Snake, Bascanion constrictor, the mortal enemy 

 of the Rattlesnake, is a familiar species, and one that is widely 

 distributed. As winter approaches, these snakes come from far 

 and near to some apparently appointed place of rendezvous, 

 where, rolling themselves up into a matted ball, they sleep 

 the days and nights of winter away, and come out in the 

 spring-time, when the common mother of us all has con- 

 ditioned things to their habits and ways of life. In appear- 

 ance, from a decorative point of view, they are very attractive, 



