By permission of the New York Zoological Society.
PINE-SNAKE.
A tree-haunting American species with very bold markings.
These snakes are separated into secondary groups with relation to the structure of their teeth. In one series these teeth are solid throughout, neither grooved nor tubular; and all the snakes thus characterised are harmless. In the second series one or more pairs of the hinder upper teeth are longitudinally grooved, and act as poison-fangs; they are consequently distinguished as the "back-fanged" group. In the third series the front teeth of the upper jaw-bone are grooved, and constitute the poison-fangs, and they are known as the "front-fanged" group.
To the first-mentioned solid-toothed and harmless division of the family belongs the British Ringed Snake and some forty other allied species which are collectively known as Water-snakes, with reference to their more or less pronounced aquatic habits. The ringed snake has a stoutish cylindrical body, keeled scales, flat head covered with regular shields, wide mouth-cleft, and numerous teeth, the strongest of which are at the hinder end of the jaw-bone. The colour varies somewhat, being usually grey, brown, or olive above, with darker spots or narrow transverse bands; the under-surface is mottled black and white or grey. The lip-shields are white or yellowish, with black dividing-lines. The neck in the ordinary variety is usually ornamented with a yellow, white, or orange collar-like patch, behind which is a somewhat broader black collar, which is produced forwards and sub-divides the yellow one in the centre of the upper-surface. In the variety of the ringed snake indigenous to the South of Europe the collar-like markings may be altogether absent, or reduced to a small black patch on each side of the nape of the neck. The maximum length of the ringed snake is some 6½ feet. It is a most expert swimmer, moving swiftly through the water with lateral undulations of its body, and carrying its head and neck well above the surface. Frogs constitute its favourite diet, but it will also capture and devour fish, mice, and young birds.
Photo by Henry Dixon & Son] [Albany Street, N.W.
COBRA (BACK VIEW).
Showing the remarkable pattern on the back of the neck, which has given rise to the name of Spectacled Snake.
The Viperine and Tesselated Snakes, both European forms, as also the Garter- and Mocassin-snakes of North America, are all closely allied in structure and habits to the familiar ringed species. The second British species, known as the Smooth Snake, belongs to the same group, but is more terrestrial in its habits; while comparatively rare in England, and limited to the southern counties, it is plentiful on the Continent. The Indian Rat-snake, which is almost as useful as the domestic cat in ridding dwellings of rats and mice, is another representative of the solid-toothed group. This group also includes the so-called Pygmy Snakes, inhabiting the Malay region, whose habits are mainly arboreal. They are the most diminutive members of their order, some of the thirty known species not exceeding 1 foot in length.