147 
ipo?] Artificial Key to the Snakes 
45. Only the middle rows of scales keeled, size small. 
* Chicken Snake, young . 
All rows of scales strongly keeled. 46. 
46. Spots on back forming crossbars with no alternating 
spots on sides. Southern Water Snake ( Matrix fasciata 
fasciata ). 
Spots on back forming crossbars on front part of body, 
and on hinder part alternating with spots on the sides. 
Common Water Snake ( Natrix fasciata Sipedon) . 
Spots on back alternating with spots on sides from head 
to tail. • Pied Water Snake ( Natrix taxispilota . ) . 
NOTES ON THE SPECIES INCLUDED IN THE KEY. 
The following species are poisonous: The three species of 
Rattlesnake (Ground, Banded, and Diamond Rattlesnakes), 
the Copperhead, and the Cottonmouth, and lastly the Coral 
Adder, which last belongs to the same group of snakes as the 
deadly cobra of India. The following harmless snakes are 
often confused with poisonous species: the Spreading Adder 
with the Copperhead; the harmless water snakes with the 
cottonmouth, both forms being indiscriminately known as 
water moccasins; and the red snake and red king snake with 
the coral adder. 
A few of the species listed have not yet been recorded from 
North Carolina, these are the coral adder, northern green 
snake, coachwhip, and milk snake, and we have only one 
unsatisfactory record of the bull snake. 
Of the species included in the key, the following have not 
yet been taken in this state outside of the lower austral life 
zone, whose northern boundary in this state appears to be 
approximately a line drawn from Norfolk through Raleigh, 
and thence to Charlotte: 
*The Southern Chicken Snake (Coluber obsoletus confinis) may possibly 
occur, in which case the keys for the young of the Chicken Snake would 
apply to this also. I do not know how the young of the two forms would 
be distinguished. 
