YS FAMILIAR IJFE IN FIELD AND FOREST. 



bushes, coils there, and slips into the water when 

 alarmed ; it is a good swimmer, and a great fighter 

 when enraged, but it is perfectly harmless. It is 

 the cast skin of this reptile which that interesting 

 woodland bird, the crested flycatcher {2lyia/rchus 

 crinitus), is so fond of as a lining for her nest.* 

 The food of the water adder is 

 frogs, small fish, salamanders, etc. 

 Common from Massachusetts to Wis- 

 consin and Georgia. In 

 the South it is called 

 the water moccasin. 

 Another species of water 

 snake, sometimes called the 

 queen snake {I^atrix lebe- 

 ris ; Hegina leberis of other 

 authors), length, twenty- 

 three inches, also common 

 in the East, is differently marked ; the color above 

 is chestnut- or chocolate-brown, with a lateral yel- 

 low band and three narrow black dorsal stripes ; yel- 

 lowish beneath ; nineteen dorsal rows ; dorsal scales 

 carinated. Frequents the banks of streams, and shal- 

 low water where there are loose stones. Common 



Queen snake, 23 Inches. 



* The nest is usually in a hole fifteen feet up in a tree, and it 

 is lined with bits of roots, grasses, and snake's skin. 



