The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-05

of their kind. The garter snake is the most widely distributed of any and is out in the air longest, being the last to hibernate and the first to come out in the spring. Even city parks have no terrors for him and his family, and many have been caught in the limits of large cities where herbage offers cover for them. As they feed almost entirely on earth worms the snakes of this family are of immeasureable help to the farmer.
 
 In their markings the snakes of the United States run more to stripes than to blotches, all the striped ones but the coral being absolutely harmless and al- ways beneficial. These feed entirely on frogs, toads, rodents, fish worms and such things the majority of which are enemies 10 the agriculturst. One of these of least use is the ribbon snake, for he eats no earthwroms. and as civilization and cultivated fields come his way he neos further to the fastnesses Of forest and mountain. The pilot black snake, despite his fondness for eggs and birds eats so many red squirrels, mice and rats that he should long ago have been catalogued among the friends of man, though the latter has let no opportunity pass to de- stroy him. The house. the milk and the chicken snakes are all harmless and help
 
 tected. While the chicken snake eats chickens as the name implies, he also eats many more rats and mice, and Is much less trouble to keep about the house taan d cat. He climbs high into trees and among the raftors of a house or barn, and from his high perch can spy upon his prey, seize and devour it with great rapidity.
 One of the handsomest of the North American snakes fG bo with blotehes on it's vivid scarlet back He is rd-breaker al destroying rats and mice and other small rodents. Of water snakes there are ten species In thls country sinuous, blotched or banded creatures who live half the time in the water, and inhabiting always the swampy places where batrachian and fishy food in plenty can be found. Brown, green olive, black and gray are the colors they wear, colors that blend with the logs and grass, trees and mud banks on which they lie, scheme that protects them from their enemies.
 There are a great many popular fal- lacies in regard to snakes that a scientist must disproVe. Phenomenal recoveres, for instance, from the bite of a spreading adder are after all not so phenomenal for this snake is harmless. The woodsman will say that rattler is 10 years old because he has found 10 rattles on the end of it's tail. The number of rattles on a snake has nothing to do with It's age. It really acquires two or three rings the first year, and if one really wants to make an estimate from the rings he must begin by allowing button and at least one ring for the first nine months of his snalSeshp's life. and then add three rings for each year The rattlers often wear off on rocks, and will not mature on an un- derfed snake. Scientists offer this method of discriminating between poisonous and harmless snakes: Look on the underslde of the body and the last few inches from the tip of the tail upward will be found to be banded across with one scale in poisonous snakes and with two in others. Tomorrow-Mllions for Railway Sta lions