One of the commonest of the non-poisonous snakes is the Striped Garter Snake, ten species of which being known in the United States. Upon the earliest appearance of spring they are almost the first to roll out of their holes, where they have lain dormant in balls or clusters during the cold winter months. Though easily excited, and striking quickly, yet their bite is little more than a scratch. Their appetites are now quite vigorous, and they have been seen to chase a toad for more than fifty feet over a gravelly road, effecting its capture. They are remarkably prolific, and their numbers about pools are sometimes astonishing. It would seem that they are viviparous as well as oviparous, from the fact that some young ones have been free and others in sacs in the abdomen of the mother. With a brood of forty or fifty young, which a single female has been known to produce, it would seem that the Striped Snake would have a difficult time in protecting her offspring by taking them into her mouth. They have this habit, however, as abundance of evidence could be adduced to show. One witness observed a Striped Snake upon a hillside, and noticed something moving about her head, which proved to be young snakes. He counted twenty little ones from one and a half to two inches long. Led by curiosity, he made a move towards the spot, when the old one opened her mouth, and they went in out of sight. He then stepped back and waited, and in a few minutes they began to come out. Another witness came across a female with some young ones near her, who, perceiving him, uttered a loud hiss, and the young ones jumped down her throat, when she instantly glided away to a place of concealment beneath a huge heap of stones. The Black Snake, _Bascanion constrictor_, the mortal enemy of the Rattlesnake, is a familiar species, and one that is widely distributed. As winter approaches, these snakes come from far and near to some apparently appointed place of rendezvous, where, rolling themselves up into a matted ball, they sleep the days and nights of winter away, and come out in the spring-time, when the common mother of us all has conditioned things to their habits and ways of life. In appearance, from a decorative point of view, they are very attractive, being of a uniform steel-blue color, with a rich tessellated arrangement of scales. They are of wild and untamable natures, powerful and active as foes, often engaging in encounters with other snakes, especially the Rattlesnakes, whom they kill or force to disgorge their prey. In their movements they are so rapid that they are often called the Racer. It is in the breeding season that they manifest their greatest boldness, and have often been known to go out of their way to attack a passer-by. They will chase an intruder for a long distance, and will even descend a tree to attack the one who is teasing them.