REPORT 



EEPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS OF OHIO. 



BY W. H. SMITH, M. D., Ph. D. 



INTRODUCTION. 



There are in the State at least thirty-six species of Reptiles and 

 twenty-five Amphibians. That vulgar prejudice exists against many of 

 these animals, which leads to their being killed wherever met, is a 

 common place truth. To show how ill-founded is this prejudice it is 

 only necessary to say that there are probably in the State but three 

 animals, Orotalut duriaius, Banded Rattlesnake, Crotalophorus tergeminus, 

 Massassauga, and Ancistrodon contortrix, the Copperhead, which are at all 

 venomous. The remainder are perfectly harmless. 



However, these creatures do not simply fail of doing evil. They often 

 do positive geod. Thus the office of soch animals as frogs, salamanders, 

 lizards and some snakes, in devouring noxious insects and other vermin, 

 is a very important one, and has a direct bearing upon the agricultural 

 interests of the State. It remains then a question whether farmers will 

 continue to misunderstand and destroy these true friends of theirs or 

 whether they shall be protected. 



The food of some of these animals furnishes an interesting object for 

 study. Thus the common Bull Frog, Rana catesbiana, has been known to eat 

 insects, helices, worms, mice, spiders preserved in alcohol, and even their 

 own species. Two instances of this came under my personal observation. 

 In one case having placed two frogs in a jar over night I was surprised 

 in the morning to find the smaller one, which was about one-third the 

 size of the other, had disappeared. To avoid the possibility of mistake, 

 the remaining one was killed, opened, and the other found in his stomach 

 in a semi-digested state, In the other case a large frog was seen in the 



