SHORT STUDIES OF SNAKES. 293 



sufficiently intelligent to warrant us in accepting this as 

 an explanation ? During the summer this snake delights 

 in sunning itself on a mat of dead grass, which it appears 

 to collect for the purpose of making a more comfortable 

 bed than the growing grass alone would afford. Often, 

 well coated with mud, they crawl from the bed of the 

 stream to these spots, and there remain a long while, 

 tightly coiled and, I suppose, asleep. The adhering mud, 

 now exposed to the sun, quickly dries and falls off, and 

 in time the grass beds become completely covered with a 

 fine dust, often an inch or more in depth. 



At other times these snakes, well coated with mud, 

 go directly from the water to one of the subterranean 

 passages, and, passing down the narrow entrance, they 

 leave a portion of the adherent mud as a rim about 

 the opening. When sun-dried, such ring-like elevations 

 closely resemble the curious "mud chimneys" of the 

 cray-fish ; and the latter, by many people, are considered 

 as the work of water-snakes. Time and again I have 

 been told that the cray-fishes' mud- works were " snake- 

 holes," and I am not surprised that such an impression is 

 common, for it must be remembered that water-snakes do 

 occasionally make a similar ring of mud about holes in 

 the mud-banks of creeks and ditches ; and again, who has 

 ever seen a cray-fish building his "chimney," ring after 

 ring, until it reaches several inches in height ? 



In the water the movements of this snake are as agile 

 as those of the most active fish, and their food consists 

 very largely of minnows. These they catch by a sudden 

 dart through a school of them, seldom failing to seize 

 one of the number. It has seemed to me, however, that 

 this was rather a hap-hazard proceeding, as the snake did 

 not appear to single out any particular fish, but merely 

 opened its mouth and left the rest to luck. Often fishes 



