NATURE NOTES FROM ACADIA

NOTES ON MT. DESERT ISLAND SNAKES

On July 25 a fine adult specimen of the Ring-necked Snake (Diadophis punctatus edwardsii) was caught in the woods between Huguenot Head and Champlain Mountains. It was the first of its kind I had seen on Mt. Desert Island in the summer seasons, although having collected it in the Belgrade Lakes region of Maine in 1929. In the years which I spent in the hills of southeastern Ohio, the Ring-necked Snake proved to be one of the commonest of reptiles.

This species is strikingly marked, the dorsal color being a uniform dark slaty-gray while the belly and the neck-ring are a bright orange-yellow. The snake is slender and small, usually under 18 inches in length. It is secretive in habits, dwelling under rocks, pieces of bark, etc.

From August 9 through 11 a number of Red-bellied Snakes (Storeria occipitomaculata) were born to adult females kept in the terrarium at our temporary museum quarters. Last summer one of our captive Red-bellied Snakes gave birth to four young on August 23 while on the 26th another female brought a small litter into the world. This snake is the smallest of the reptiles native to Mt. Desert Island. In some individuals the dorsal coloration is a rich brown while others are slaty gray above. The undersurface in either case is a bright vermilion, hence the common name of this species.

The Smooth-scaled Green Snake (Liopeltis vernalis), a slender species of small size, is one of the commonest snakes in Acadia National Park. On July 29, last summer, 30 eggs of this snake were found and these began to hatch on August 17. This year the eggs laid by a captive female hatched on August 22.

The sight of a starving house cat eating a green snake was had by members of the Appalachian Mountain Club who, in mid-July, accompanied me on a nature walk from their camp site at Echo Lake. The cat, very thin and so hungry that it paid no attention to us, had evidently caught the snake only a short time before. I succeeded in recovering all that remained of the luckless reptile, enough to convince me that the cat had actually caught and killed this rather unusual kind of prey. It was evidently a matter of eat anything or else starve, and the cat spent no time in deliberation. Upon returning the piece I had rescued from the animal's jaws, the cat ate it, head and all, voraciously.

- Temporary Park Naturalist