| Age-Group (years) | Percentage of population in age-group | Percentage of fecund females in age-group | Percentage productive females in age-group | Eggs per productive female | Number of eggs produced |
| 2 | 41.5 | 51.2 | 13 | 9.2 | 26 |
| 3 | 17.8 | 51.2 | 56 | 9.9 | 51 |
| 4 | 12.6 | 51.2 | 60 | 10.8 | 42 |
| 5 | 9.5 | 55.0 | 57 | 13.0 | 39 |
| 6 and over | 18.6 | 61.3 | 80 | 15.7 | 143 |
Table 21. Percentages of Racers in Each Annual Age Group (Exclusive of Hatchlings)
in Autumnal Samples at Different Stages of the Field Study,
Showing Shift Toward Older Age-Groups in the Later Years
| Years of Age | Year or combination of years represented by each sample | ||||
| 1949 | 1950 1951 1952 | 1953 1954 1955 | 1956 1957 1958 | 1959 1960 1961 1962 | |
| 1 | 54 | 44 | 39 | 39 | 41 |
| 2 | 14 | 24 | 21 | 19 | 19 |
| 3 | 18 | 11 | 23 | 16 | 13 |
| 4 | 4 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 9 |
| 5 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 8 | 8 |
| 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| 7 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 |
| 8 | ...... | ...... | ...... | .5 | 2 |
| 9 | ...... | 1 | .4 | .5 | 2 |
| 10 | ...... | ...... | .4 | 2 | 1 |
| Older than 10 | ...... | ...... | ...... | .5 | ..... |
| Number in sample | 49 | 126 | 117 | 194 | 242 |
Although figures for the youngest age groups—one-year-olds and hatchlings—are missing, approximations of them may be furnished by extrapolation, from the information available regarding the productivity of the population. Some factors involved in productivity are that the sex ratio deviates from parity, slightly in favor of the females in the adolescents but more markedly in favor of the females among the older age groups; that some adult females apparently fail to produce eggs in the breeding season, but the percentage decreases in the older snakes; and that number of eggs per clutch increases in proportion to the size and age of the female producing them. Too few figures are available concerning most of these factors to indicate more than the trends; nevertheless the available figures have been used in [Table 20] in an attempt to estimate the productivity of a hypothetical population.
Conant (1938:178, Pl. 7) published a photograph of 106 blue racers killed in February, 1932, by farmers near Bellville, Ohio, and Pope (1944:173) mentioned that scores of blue racers aggregated in October around an oak-covered dune near Chicago. In both these instances large hibernating aggregations were involved, and the areas represented by them are unknown; nothing has been recorded regarding population densities.
The records obtained through my fall trapping, along hilltop rock outcrops, yielded no information concerning population densities, but those obtained in fields in summer did provide significant information in this regard. Even after years of trapping on the same area, the catch still consisted largely of new individuals; the method was not sufficiently effective to catch all racers present at any one time, and the total catch for a season therefore provided only a crude index of the minimum number present.
The summer trapping was carried on in three separate areas. One of these was the area of bottomland pastures and formerly cultivated fields where the Reservation headquarters are located, a block of 39 acres bounded on three sides by woodland, and on the fourth by cultivated farm land. Effective trapping in this area was carried on through the years 1955 to 1961 inclusive. A second area, of 48 acres, was one of upland fields, mostly covered with re-established prairie grasses, in the northeastern part of the Reservation. A third area, of 137 acres, also upland, was that of the Rockefeller Tract, cultivated through 1956 and sown to prairie grasses the following year, and the adjacent northwestern hilltop portion of the Reservation. Effective trapping on these two latter areas was carried on in 1958 through 1962.
For the seven years of trapping in the House Field area, the catch was as follows: 30, 33, 38, 38, 34, 24, and 20. In four years of trapping, the northeast field area yielded 42, 28, 37, 59, and 19 blue racers, and the Rockefeller Tract yielded 52, 67, 67, 126, and 106. The actual catch was hence less than one per acre in nearly all instances, but the year-to-year differences in catch are believed to be caused chiefly by differences in numbers of traps used and in trapping effort, rather than by changes in the numbers of racers present.
Best index to the number of racers actually present is provided by the number of recaptures, and their ratio to first captures. The population of course, undergoes alteration from year to year, with many racers eliminated and replaced by others.