THE FEEDING HABITS OF SERPENTS 



By Raymond L. Ditmars. 

 INTRODUCTION 



From a series of observations embracing a period of many years 

 the writer has drawn the conclusions and prepared the notes here- 

 with presented. He has been particularly fortunate in the posses- 

 sion of elaborate material in pursuing his studies of a zoological 

 specialty. Ten years prior and up to the time of assuming charge 

 of the reptiles in the Zoological Park, the writer maintained a large 

 collection of living serpents, with which his investigations permitted 

 the observation of individual examples. Such work is of great value, 

 yet largely impossible in the care of a great collection like that we 

 have installed in our Reptile House. However, in the latter comes 

 the ability to maintain a thoroughly representative series of subjects 

 with the consequent possibility of comparison of habits. All phases 

 of serpent life relating to habits and structure have been represented 

 in the collection of the New York Zoological Society. Yet this very 

 elaboration of exhibition, so instructive to our visitors, is detrimental 

 to the condition of the reptiles, as it renders individual attention 

 impossible and thereby shortens the life of the greater number of 

 specimens. 



Quite different from other vertebrates, the feeding of snakes is so 

 influenced by temperature, light, the nervous condition of the reptile, 

 or the slightest ill-health, that any of these causes slightly deviating 

 from the normal will result in an abrupt cessation of feeding. It is 

 possible to produce normal conditions and induce steady feeding with 

 but a comparatively small proportion of snakes, — about half of the 

 total number of species that it is possible to obtain for exhibition. 

 Some feed irregularly, and their lives as captives are short. There 

 are representatives of a few species that never have been induced to 

 feed in captivity. The latter are mostly poisonous snakes. 



