Eastern Cottonmouth Reproduction 
121 
Fig. 2. Total energy content (kcal) of offspring as a function of female body 
weight (g). The equation for the relationship is: kcal offspring = 0.61 weight of 
female (g) - 41.20; r = 0.93. Eleven different females are included in the analysis. 
in relative fatness, expressed as a percentage, is not statistically significant. 
Larger females gave birth to correspondingly larger young (Table 2). 
Length and weight of young cottonmouths at Hopewell are distinctly 
smaller than those of newborn cottonmouths at Florida sites (Allen and 
Swindell 1948, Wharton 1966), but sufficient data are lacking at present 
for proper analyses of geographic trends. The “heritability” of size of 
young cottonmouths at the present study location is statistically signifi- 
cant, but comparative data from other study sites are unavailable. Also, 
heritability of size is expected to be statistically great when only the 
female parent is known (Falconer 1960). The physiological/ ecological 
basis for the relationship between the size of female snakes and their 
