PILOT BLACK SNAKE PREDATION ON THE LONG BILLED MARSH WREN 
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On June 6, 1965 we observed, a juvenile Pilot Black Snake in a Long- 
billed. Marsh Wren/nest in a marsh along the Potomac River four miles south 
of Washington, D.C. The snake was collected and two fresh Long-billed. Marsh 
Wren eggs were found in its stomach. 
The nest containing the snake and several nearby nests were built in 
narrow-leaf cattail ( Typha angustifolia ) at a height of about four feet above 
high tide and at a distance of about fifteen yards from the river. The 
snake, 38.25 cm. in total length and. .75 cm. in diameter, was identified, 
as Ela-Phe £. obsoleta by Dr. James A. Peters of the U. S. Rational Museum. 
According to Wright (Handbook of Snakes, 1957, PP* 230-235) this snake 
is one of the most arboreal of northeastern snakes and is found mostly in 
hilly, rocky, or scrubby mountainous regions. It lives in uplands away 
from lakes and. swamps and is not generally considered, an aquatic or semi- 
aquatic snake. However, Kilham (Wilson Bull. 71:191) observed, a Pilot Black 
Snake near a Pileated Woodpecker'nest in a swamp over a period of five days. 
Uhler et.al. (Trans. Fourth N. Amer. Wildl. Conf. 1939, PP- 608, 612- 
613) in a study of Pilot Black Snake food habits in Virginia, reported 
that birds and. their eggs constituted 13.31 percent by volume of this 
snake’s diet. Ho marsh wrens were reported, as food items but this is to 
be expected since the study area did not contain marsh wren habitat. 
Apparently this is the first record, of snake predation on the Long-billed. 
Marsh Wren and is certainly the first record/for the Pilot Black Snake. 
Roger Clapp and. Tina C. Abbott 
U. S. National Museum, ( Washington, D.C. 
