CHAPTER XVII. 
REPTILES. 
By 
J. B. WILLIAMS, F.Z.S. 
Our of about thirty Reptiles, that are found in 
the Province of Ontario, only eleven occur in the 
neighbourhood of Toronto. 
Of these only two are turtles—the small Mud 
Turtle, and the large Snapping Turtle. 
With a large marshy area, like Ashbridge Bay, 
close to the city, one would have expected a greater 
variety; but Toronto never seems to have been very 
rich in reptile forms. The Blue-tailed Lizard, which 
occurs north-east of the city at Peterborough, and 
north-west around the Georgian Bay, has never been 
found here; and we have no poisonous snakes in this 
district. Rattlesnakes were, formerly, plentiful in 
the country from Hamilton to Niagara, and a few 
still linger in the Niagara glens, and they are also 
found at the Georgian Bay; but, like the lizard, they 
seem to prefer rocky districts, and there is no record 
of their ever occurring near Toronto. 
Nine snakes are found in this neighbourhood ; 
four of these, viz., the Red-bellied, Dekay’s Brown, 
Grass, and Ring-necked, are small snakes varying 
from a foot to eighteen inches in length; the other 
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