68 GLEANINGS FROM NATURE. 



make the welkin ring on just such days as tempt the 

 snake forth from its winter's retreat. As these frogs, 

 small as they are, are fully twice the diameter of the 

 snake, it is doubtless with much effort that this first 

 spring meal reaches its final resting place in the lat- 

 ter's stomach. Later on in the season young and ten- 

 der grasshoppers and crickets furnish them a bountiful 

 repast, and it is even affirmed of them by Abbott that 

 "they are excellent fishers, and gliding through the 

 water with marvelous celerity, they catch minnows 

 and young pike in large numbers." The young of 

 this species, as well as those of the next, are hatched 

 from eggs within the body of the mother, and num- 

 ber from eight to fifteen. 



Another snake which, from above, closely resem- 

 bles the last mentioned in color and size is Storer's 

 brown snake, Storeria occipitomaculata (Store r). Its 

 scales, however, are in 15 rows, and on 

 B iTsnake Burning ^ over, a difference can be 

 readily seen as it is a deep salmon-red 

 beneath, whence it is often called the "red-bellied 

 brown snake." Its usual home is beneath logs and 

 stones where it feeds upon crickets, myriapods, slugs, 

 earth worms and other crawling creatures. 



On one occasion while driving in Vigo County the 

 writer saw a chicken running along the roadside with 

 a wriggling snake in its bill. After a sharp chase of 

 the fowl through a rail fence and a blackberry patch, 

 its prey was dropped and proved to be a fine speci- 

 men of Storer's snake. As soon as it *found itself 

 free it wrapped its tail about a small bush and when 

 approached flattened itself very much after the man- 



