GILPIN — ON THE SERPENTS OF NOVA SCOTIA. 81 



without it, and which possess a small degree of parental affection in 

 consequence of it, denied to the others : yet so slow is all this elabo- 

 ration for the higher life of the hot blooded mammal, that there do 

 exist fish that cannot live without air, and others that can live with- 

 out air, but do have a parental affection. The young of the 

 dog-fish accompany their parent and are taken into its stomach in 

 time of danger, and a single species of East Indian fish cannot live 

 without air. Fish generally live without air and devour their own 

 spawn, frogs whose early life is fish do the same, but the serpent 

 which commences from an egg in open air regards her young, cares 

 for them, and like the dog-fish, receives them in her stomach as a 

 conveyance, as well as a refuge, from danger. 



The curious modiformations, the bone used in the higher form for 

 respiration alone, I mean the rib, undergoes in its progress to higher 

 life, are striking, which must be my excuse for mentioning them in 

 a paper on Nova Scotian Serpents. In fish the rib seems of no 

 use in a respiration which is motionless. In the frog it seems a 

 spinal process, having no attachment to a breast bone, but in the 

 snake it is very numerous, strongly attached to the spine, extending 

 the length of the body, and the free end attached to broad scales on 

 the belly. By these scales moving forwards and backwards the 

 enake glides. He may be said to run upon his ribs. These facts 

 are of great value when we find the rib in the first hot blooded air 

 breathers the porpoise jointed in the middle, and in the birds in- 

 troduced into life at a contemporary period also jointed, and by the 

 great power of contracting and extending its body adding vastly to 

 its powers of locomotion in body. 



The Garter Snake. 



JEutania sirtalis. B. & G. Smithsonian. Institute. 

 Coluber sirtalis. Linn. Storer. 

 Trophidonatus sirtalis. Holb. 

 Trophidonatus taenia. DeKay. 



This is the most common of our snakes, appearing in open 

 springs, in April, and leaving us in October. I do not recollect 

 ever finding them except alone. Though taking water very readily, 

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