STRIPED OR GARTER SNAKE. 681 



Occasionally owing to open or very mild weather they re-appear, for a 

 few days at a time, earlier, and then seem to again hybernate. They are gre- 

 garious in winter quarters, having been frequently ploughed up in bunches, 

 are sometimes found under peat, and in company with rattlesnakes. Dr. 

 Kirtland reports that they are eaten by hawks, owls, swine, and in some 

 instances, by fowls, ducks, and turkies. The females in July and August 

 are usually found pregnant with from twenty-five to forty young, and in 

 September and October the sexes have been seon in copulation. 



Var. dorsalia, Baird and Girard, has a broader vetebral stripe, margined on each aide 

 for one scale in width with black, as are also the sides of the abdominal scntellae and 

 upper basal edge of the scales in the exterior dorsal row ; a row of spots above the 

 lateral stripe, and the outer row of dorsal scales acutely emarginate. 



Var. parietalis, Baird and Girard, has a moderately broad dorsal stripe, and the 

 spaces about and between the lateral dark spots brick red. IS is probably extralimital, 

 ranging from Indiana to Texas and West. 



Var. radix, Baird and Girard, has the scales rough, the outer row broad, the stripes 

 narrow, the lateral ones being less than a scale in width though situated upon two rows, 

 often upon the third and fourth, and has six series of distinct black spots. It is extra- 

 limital, ranging from Illinois and Wisconsin, to Minnesota, Dakota, Oregon, and Wash- 

 ington Territory. 



Another variety occurring in the State is characterized by the entire 

 absence of the dorsal stripe, it might appropriately be called melanota. 



Genus EEGINA. Baird and Girard. 

 Body rather slender ; size moderately small ; teeth isodont; cephalic plates normal; 

 anteorbitals two or one ; postorbitals two, sometimes three ; labials and inframaxillaries 

 moderate ; nasals otie or two ; loral present ; prefrontals two ; dorsal scales oarinated 

 in 19-21 rows ; gastrosteges 130-164 ; nrosteges 50-85, all divided ; post- abdominal scutella 

 bifid ; general color light beneath, dark above, usually with longitudinal bands ; habits 

 mostly aquatic ; reproduction ovoviviparons. 

 Anteorbitals two. a. 



Anteorbitals one. • . . , . K. kirtlandh. 



a. Vertical plate as broad at posterior edge of superciliaries as in front. 6. 

 a. Vertical plate less broad at posterioi edge of saperciliaries than in front ; extra- 

 limital; Texas. R. CLARsn. 



i. Abdomen nnioolor or with bands, o. 



6. Abdomen with two series of black spots ; extralimital ; Pennsylvania and 



South R. EiGn)A. 



0. Vertical plate notched upon the sides to receive the projectiog angle of the 



superciliaries R. grahami. 



e. Sides of vertical plate not notched B. lsbxris. 



