164 MELLISH — SEEPENTS OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. 



Genus-STOiiETiiA. 

 Storeria occipitomaculata. B. & G. 

 Ked Bellied Snake. 



The Fauna and flora of Prince Edward Island are different in 

 some respects from those of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 

 This can be accounted for in part at least by the insular character 

 of the Island, and also by its geological formation, the latter being 

 carboniferous and triassic — much more recent than the older forma- 

 tions which so largely predominate on this side of the Strait. If 

 the Island always was an island and not a peninsula joined to the 

 main by a neck of land of which Cape Tormentine and Cape 

 Traverse are the only visible remnants, we may find it difficult to 

 trace the introduction of all the varieties of fauna found there. If 

 on the other hand the Island was formerly joined to the continent, 

 we can readily account for the fauna being nearly identical with 

 what we have here in Nova Scotia. No animals of the deer species 

 are to be found on the island, nor is there reliable evidence as far as 

 I know, that there ever were any. In a diary kept on the Island 

 about a hundred years ago by a gentleman who evidently relished a 

 good dinner, I find many entries of moose having been included in 

 the bill of fare, but at the same time I find in the scant lists of 

 freight conveyed in the small craft of that day from Baie Verte or 

 Tatmagouche to Charlottetown, frequent mention of moose or 

 moose-meat — a fact which would argue that there were then no 

 moose on the Island, and that the meat was imported for use. 

 Foxes have been known to cross the Strait of Northumberland at 

 its narrowest part (about nine miles) in winter. Bears have been 

 known to swim several miles voluntarily, and it is not improbable 

 that they have crossed the Strait by swimming in summer. In 

 regard to snakes, however, the notion that they would cross either 

 by ice or water is untenable. 



The Garter Snake. 



Eutmnia Sirtalis. B. & G. Smithsonian Institute. 

 Coluber Sirtalis. Linn. Storer. 



