Pet Snakes Reptiles 
The garter snakes usually congregate in numbers in 
the fall in rock ledges and stony hillsides, where each 
snake finds a safe crevice or makes a burrow, which 
may be extended a yard or more under ground. 
After spring opens they scatter to banks of streams 
and to edges of woods where they can find an abund- 
ance of earthworms, insects, toads, salamanders and 
frogs, which make up their natural diet. The young 
are born late in July, and are nearly six inches long at 
first; one mother may have a brood of from eleven to 
fifty snakelings; she remains with them during the 
fall to protect them, although the little snakes find 
their own food directly after birth. 
In addition to the garter snake, Mr. Karl Schmidt 
recommends the pine snake and the blowing snake 
for pets. Mr. Richard Deckert, of the New York 
Zoological Gardens, recommends the king, the 
gopher, the pine and the bull snakes for pets. He 
also says that the milk snake is not a very hardy pet. 
It can, however, be kept in a cage for one or two 
months without food, provided it is supplied with 
fresh drinking water. It will endure this fast and 
then may be turned loose; although a beautifully 
marked snake, Mr. Deckert finds it rather surly and 
high tempered, and it should never be put in with the 
garter snakes since it is a constrictor, and a small 
milk snake will kill a garter much larger than it- 
self. 
Mr. Deckert says that water snakes may also be 
kept in a vivarium; and that although they usually 
offer to bite when first caught, and also emit a stench, 
yet after a few days they are among the hardiest 
snakes in captivity. 
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