CHAPTER IX. 



PROTECTIVE COLORATION IN SNAKES, WITH OTHER NOTES 

 ABOUT THEM. 



(Ophidia.) 



PEAKING of protective mimicry and protective colora- 

 tion in snakes, one of the prettiest examples of it 

 known to me among those reptiles in eastern North 

 America is often seen in our common little Summer 

 snake, described by naturalists as Cyclopliis vcrnalis. One warm 

 day last spring, as I was passing through a thin, broken piece of 

 maple woods, with an undergrowth of brambles and bushes of 

 various kinds, my attention was drawn to a mass of smilax vine, 

 the stems of which were as green as green could be, and its beau- 

 tiful leaves had attained only about half their full size and 

 growth. Something moved in a peculiar gliding manner adown 

 its thorn-bedecked branches, that was of a shade of green cor- 

 responding exactly with that of the vine itself, and in an instant 

 I realized that it was a large specimen of the Summer snake. The 

 reptile was over 20 inches long, and as slender as the lash to a 

 boy's whip. It was of a very pale yellowish green upon its nether 

 aspect, while the entire dorsum was of an emerald hue. Small 

 and delicate in structure, its oval head was but a trifle larger 

 than the continuation of the neck, and knowing the creature to 

 be as gentle and as harmless as any living thing in the world, I 

 carefully drew it away from the vine with my hand, and coiled it 

 up in a paper cone, which I duly placed in my pocket. Then with 

 my knife I cut clear the very part of the vine in which I had first 

 discovered the Cyclophis, and with this I came direct home, be- 

 fore the leaves had any opportunity to wilt. Within an hour a 

 good photograph of this pretty subject was obtained, and the re- 

 production of this is shown in Fig. 34 of the present chapter. 

 These gentle little snakes are preyed upon by other snakes, by 

 hawks and other birds, and maybe by some mammals. So their 

 green color and extremely slender form greatly protects them 

 against their enemies, and renders them far less likely to be seen 

 by them. Some contend, and very erroneously I think, that this 

 particular coloration in the snake is to make it less likely to be 

 observed by the insects upon which it lives, and thus insures the 



