COLUBER CONSTRICTOR. 



59 



Sometimes the old bird by her cries calls in the assistance of her neighbours, to 

 drive away the aggressor. I have seen more than a dozen birds, thus engaged 

 with a large Black Snake, that had probably just committed some depredation, 

 but was now quietly stretched on a rock, basking in the sun; and it was not a 

 little singular that birds of very different genera^ and those seldom seen together, 

 all united in this warfare against a common enemy, and finally compelled him to 

 seek shelter among some low, thick shrubs, by the violence of their assault. 



Another remark of Dr. Barton, on "fascination," is worthy of attentive 

 observation; he says, "as far as he could learn after many inquiries, that the 

 season of the year at which any particular species of bird has been seen under 

 the influence of the fascinating power of a serpent, corresponds with the exact 

 time of their Hncuhation'' or rearing their young." 



Geographical Distribution. The Coluber constrictor is found in nearly all 

 parts of the United States, and may be regarded as' the most common of our 

 serpents. Kalm met with it as far north as latitude 43; thence it reaches to the 

 shores of the Gulf of Mexico; nor is it confined to the Atlantic states, but abounds 

 in the western country; Say found it even as high as Engineer Cantonment 

 on the Missouri, and I have received specimens from Louisiana and Arkansas. 



General Remarks. Catesby first described the Black Snake, and accompanied 

 his description with a very good figure. Kalm subsequently gave a long account 

 of it in his travels, but he seems very credulous, and relates several absurd stories 

 as to its habits. Linnaeus, by some great oversight, in the tenth edition of his 

 Systema Naturae, confounded this animal with the Heterodon simus; which error, 

 however, he corrected in his twelfth and last edition. 



