BRANCH CHORD AT A: CLASS REPTILIA 



States are beautiful lustrous black-and-yellow spotted 

 snakes which feed not only on lizards, salamanders, 

 small birds and mice but also on other snakes. The 

 king-snake should be protected in regions infested by 

 "rattlers." The spreading adder or blowing viper 

 (Heterodox platirhinos], a common snake in the eastern 

 States, brownish or reddish with dark dorsal and lateral 

 blotches, depresses and expands the head when angry, 

 hissing and threatening. Despite the popular belief in its 

 poisonous nature this ugly reptile is quite harmless. It 

 specially infests dry sandy places. 



With the exception of the coral or beadsnake (Elaps 

 fulvius], a rather small jet-black snake with seventeen 

 broad yellow-bordered crimson rings, found in the 

 southern States, the only poisonous snakes of the United 

 States are the rattlesnakes and their immediate relatives, 

 the copperhead and water-moccasin. These snakes all 

 have a large triangular head, and the posterior tip of the 

 body is, in the rattlesnakes, provided with a "rattle" 



FlG. 128. A king-snake, Lampropeltis boy Hi. 

 J. O. Snyder.) 



(Photograph from life by 



composed of a series of partly overlapping thin horny 

 capsules or cones of shape as shown in figure 130. These 

 horny pieces are simply the somewhat modified succes- 

 sively formed epidermal coverings of the tip of the body, 



