These scales were like gray and white tiles placed at random. They formed an attractive, if less striking surface. Finished examining it, we released the snake and watched it retreat into the garden. My wife, not a snake lover, will worry about it when she is gardening next spring. She needn't fear.
Milk snakes are benign mouse eaters, but they are persecuted because of misassociations.
Their name derives from the wrong-headed folklore belief that they steal milk from cow udders. The copperhead is browner with far less evident patterning. A milk snake will occasionally vibrate its tail but rattlesnakes display real rattles. Also brightly colored, the coral snake's snout is black and, unlike any of our non-poisonous snakes, its red and yellow touch. Of these venomous snakes only the timber and massasauga rattlesnakes are found in this region anyway, and those rarely.