Nonsense c os e o 
1894.] Zoology. 959 
9. Coluber vulpinus (B. & G.), pugnacious and regarded with super- 
stitious dread. 
10. Coluber guttatus (Linn.), found in dusty roads; enters yards and 
gardens at night. 
11. Coluber obsoletus (Say), decidedly reddish from the blotches on 
base of scales. Have found it only on trees.  Hisses with considerable 
force. A captive ate sparrows, but declined mice and eggs. 
12. Natrix leberis (Linn.), “striped water snake." 
13. Natrix kirtlandii (Kenn.), “spread head ;" rare. 
14. Natrix sipedon (Linn.), large; typical variety of our most com- 
mon snake; variously colored. I found one that would flatten its 
head and anterior portion of its body like the N. kirt/andii or the 
Heterodon platirhinus. I have seen the two extremes of color, the red- 
dish brown and the black spotted in the brood of one female captive. 
15. Heterodon platyrhinus, common. A friend found a spotted and 
a uniformly colored specimen copulating and kept them, hoping to 
raise a family of cross breeds, but his neighbors threatened to prosecute 
him for keeping such venemous serpents in town, and at length some 
one broke open his box and killed the “deadly spreading adders." 
The snakes were strictly diurnal in their habits. They were voracious 
and preferred toads, but when pressed by hunger would eat frogs and 
small snakes. 
16. Ophibolus doliatus (Linn.) common. A boy killed one in the 
woods, and I went out to examine it, and found beside the dead snake 
a live one of the same species. It was examining the body and 
showed fight when disturbed. Was it a mourner guarding the corpse, 
or a ghoul disturbed at its feast? I do not know. 
17. Ophibolus getulus, less common. 
18, 19, 20. Eutainia saurita, radix and sirtalis, the latter in great 
variety. 
Mr. Robert Ridgway says that he was informed that the Ancistrodon 
piscivorus (LaC.) was abundant about Vincennes. He was probably 
misinformed. a ue 
"The Natrix sipedon is called the “ water moccassin " jn this locality, 
and is much dreaded. A man near here is reported to have died re- 
cently from the effects of its bite, aud, strange to say, this story is be- 
lieved. 
The coral snake, Elaps fulvius, has been twice reported from this 
State, but no one in this locality, so far as I can learn, has ever heard 
-of such an animal.— AnGus GAINES. 
38 Locust St., Vincennes, Ind. 
