The albino Eastern Garter Snake caught on September 6, 1986 
how these colour patterns are determined, and if it can be bred 
to normally-pigmented individuals. 
Exhaustive (and exhausting) searches in the area of capture 
have failed to find any other albinos. It is difficult to 
obtain a measure of rarity for such an albino in a populational 
sense, but an albino Garter Snake was offered for sale in the 
United States for US$500. 
We are indebted to Dr. Francis R. Cook, Curator of Herpeto¬ 
logy, National Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa, for litera¬ 
ture sources, helpful comments and measurements of the albino. 
Li ter a ture Ci ted 
Dyrkacz, S. 1981. Recent instances of albinism in North Ameri¬ 
can amphibians and reptiles. Society for the Study of Amphi¬ 
bians and Reptiles, Herpetological Circular 11: 1-31. 
Froom, B. 1972. The snakes of Canada. McClelland and Stewart, 
Toronto/Montreal. 128 pp. 
Weller, W.F. 1983. Albino Eastern Garter Snakes, Thamnophis 
sirtalis sirtalis , from Ontario. Canadian Field-Naturalist 
97(4): 456. n 
81 
