The Black Snake.
This Snake is possessed of great activity, climbs with ease over bushes and along the trunks of trees, and glides so swiftly over the ground as easily to elude pursuit. It feeds on birds, eggs, frogs, and small quadrupeds, and evinces great antipathy towards all other species of Serpent, with most of which, although destitute of poison fangs, it fights on the least provocation. It occurs abundantly from Louisiana to Connecticut, but I have not observed it in Maine or the British provinces.