ON THE SERPENTS OF NEW-YORK 



WITH A NOTICE OF A SPECIES NOT HITHERTO INCLUDED IN THE 

 FAUNA OP THE STATB« 



BY SPEBfCER F. BilRDe 



WASHINGTON, D.-C. 



At the suggestion of Dr. T. Romeyn Beck, Secretary of the Board 

 €f Regents of the University of New- York, I embrace the occasion 

 of adding a serpent, not hitherto included in the Fauna of New- 

 York, to present the principal characters of the genera of New- 

 York Ophidians, with a brief synopsis of the species. The entire 

 number described by Dr. Dekay, in the Fauna of New-York, 

 amounted to fifteen, distributed into seven genera : to these Mr. 

 Gebhard, the able Curator of the State Cabinet, has added a six- 

 teenth, C'rotalophorus tergeminus. The species I now propose to 

 notice is the Storeria occipito-maculata, one of tlie most abundant 

 of all, though, on account of its diminutive size, usually over- 

 looked ; thus making the seventeenth. 



My attention was first called to the existence of this species in 

 the State by Dr. Avery J. Skilton, of Troy, who, in 1847, showed 

 me the first specimen I had ever seen. Subsequently I found it 

 very common on Lake Champlain, at Westport, N.Y. Usually 

 associated with the Tropidonotus dekayi of Holbeook ( Storeria 

 dekayi, B. & G.) , it has a strong resemblance to it in general 

 appearance as well as size, and indeed has often been confounded 

 with it, though easily distinguishable by well-marked characters, 



{ Senate No. 50.] 7 



