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Bird Homes, by A. R. Dugmore. Doubleday, Page & Co. Price, $3.50. (Popular.)
Birds That Hunt and Are Hunted, by Neltje Blanchan. Doubleday, Page & Co. Price, $3.50. (Popular.)
SNAKES, GOOD AND BAD
Snakes are to the animal world what toadstools are to the vegetable world — wonderful things, beautiful things, but fearsome things, because some of them are deadly poison.
Taking Mr. Raymond L. Ditmars[1] as our authority, we learn that out of one hundred and eleven species of snakes found in the United States, seventeen are poisonous. They are found in every state, but are most abundant in the Southwest.
These may be divided into Coral Snakes, Moccasins, and Rattlers.
The Coral Snakes are found in the Southern States. They are very much like harmless snakes in shape, but are easily distinguished by their remarkable colors, “broad alternating rings of red and black, the latter bordered with very narrow rings of yellow.”
The Rattlesnakes are readily told at once by the rattle.
But the Moccasins are not so easy. There are two kinds: the Water Moccasin, or Cotton-mouth, found in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana, and the Copperhead, which is the Highland, or Northern Moccasin or Pilot Snake, found from Massachusetts to Florida and west to Illinois and Texas.
Here are distinguishing marks: The Moccasins, as well as the Rattlers, have on each side of the head, between the eye and nostril, a deep pit.
The pupil of the eye is an upright line, as in a cat; the harmless snakes have a round pupil.
The Moccasins have a single row of plates under the tail, while the harmless snakes have a double row.
The Water Moccasin is dull olive with wide black transverse bands.
The Copperhead is dull hazel brown, marked across the back with dumb-bells of reddish brown; the top of the head more or less coppery.
Both Moccasins and Rattlers have a flat triangular head, which is much wider than the thin neck; while most harmless snakes have a narrow head that shades off into the neck.
- ↑ This article is chiefly a condensation of his pamphlet on “Poisonous Snakes of the United States,” and is made with his permission and approval.
