262 REPTILES OF THE WORLD 



eggs, as do all the Colubers, are pale gray, with dark 

 oblong blotches. During the latter part of the first year 

 the stripes appear as smoky lines, connecting the blotches, 

 while the ground color becomes more tawny; the snake 

 is now both striped and spotted. As the stripes grow 

 stronger, the blotches become fainter, the pattern finally 

 becoming as originally described. 



The popular name, "Chicken Snake," is an unfair, 

 misleading title for a useful reptile. Snakes of this 

 kind may be occasionally found prowling about poultry 

 houses, where they may take toll for their rodent-eating 

 services in the shape of several eggs or a very young 

 fowl. As is usual with snakes, however, the little evil 

 they do is the only point of their habits considered by 

 the farmer. It is the same as the war waged against 

 hawks. Over the proverbial fireplace of the farmhouse 

 is a loaded shotgun, ready for a hawk. A chicken 

 stolen by a bird of prey is but one to a hundred as com- 

 pared with the injurious rodents caught and eaten by 

 the feathered ratter. 



Ajnong the handsomest of the Colubers is the Corn 

 Snake, C. guttatus, also of the Southeast, occurring 

 from southern North Carolina southward. A full- 

 grown specimen is five feet long. The coloration is 

 reddish-j^ellow with a series of large crimson saddles on 

 the back and smaller, alternating blotches on the sides; 

 the head is red, with chevron-shaped markings ; all of the 

 large blotches of the body are bordered with black. The 

 abdomen is boldly tessellated with black and white. 



This beautiful creature lives well in captivity. 

 Queerly enough, it prefers mice to any other prey. In 

 widely-separated parts of its range the writer has heard 

 it called the INIouse Snake, showing the persistence of a 

 useful habit when in a wild state. 



