New York State Museum 



SERPENTS OF NORTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 



BY EDWIN C. ECKEL 

 INTRODUCTION 



The following catalogue was commenced with the intention of 

 including only such species of serpents as have been found within 

 the limits of New York state, together with such other species as 

 could, from occurrences in adjoining states, be reasonably expected 

 to occur here. A preliminary check list, prepared on that basis by 

 the author, and published recently in the American naturalist^ con- 

 tained 25 species and subspecies. This list was notably imperfect, 

 of which fact no one was more conscious than its author ; but it 

 was the first attempt to formulate such a catalogue since Baird's list 

 of 1854. 



De Kay, in 1842, described 15 species of snakes as occurring in 

 this state. To this list Gebhard added a sixteenth (Storeria 

 occipitomaculata) in 1851, and a seventeenth (Sistrurus 

 catenatus catenatus) in 1853. The present list names 19 

 species as inhabitants of New York state, one of these species how- 

 ever being represented by six subspecies. One additional species, 

 (Coluber vulpinus) is added because of a single occurrence in 

 Massachusetts ; while the three remaining species have been found 

 in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, but not in New York. 



The total number of species and subspecies here described is 28, 

 and the catalogue, as now issued, includes every species and sub- 

 species authentically recorded from that portion of the United 

 States lying north of Maryland and east of Ohio. Two additions 

 may have to be made to this list in the near future. It is probable 

 that some more southern representative of Osceola doliata 

 than O.d. triangula will be found to occur in New Jersey or 

 Pennsylvania; while there is a possibility that some. of the Ohio 

 specimens (from Lake Erie) identified as Natrix fasciata 

 erythrogaster may really prove to be of that subspecies. 



As noted later in this bulletin, I am greatly indebted to Messrs 

 H. D. Reed of Cornell university, and W. Seward Wallace of New 

 York, for hitherto unpublished data which they have placed at 



