Burt (1928:56) without citing specific records, stated that "The food of _E. fasciatus_ consists largely of insects and spiders," but in another paper (1928:62) he listed contents of two stomachs, including a wood roach (_Parcoblatta_), a cricket (_Gryllus pennsylvanicus_), a grasshopper, and 2 spiders (attid and lycosid). Smith, summarizing the findings of other authors (1946:350), stated that "The food consists of various small insects, insect larvae, earthworms, spiders, etc. Small vertebrates such as young lizards and mice are sometimes eaten." In a later work Smith (1950:188) altered this statement slightly: "The food consists of almost any small moving animal, including many kinds of arthropods and even small vertebrates." Many authors have mentioned predation on mammals by these skinks, but without citing specific instances, which must be rare indeed, for the smallest newborn mice seem to be near the maximum size of objects that could possibly be swallowed by the largest adults of the common five-lined skink. Various early records and statements pertaining to predation on small vertebrates by five-lined skinks probably pertain in most cases to _E. laticeps_, which is much larger than _E. fasciatus_, and more powerful. Barbour (1950:102) recorded stomach contents of an _E. fasciatus_ collected in Harlan County, Kentucky, as consisting of 60 per cent Arachnida, 30 per cent adult Lepidoptera, and 10 per cent ants, by volume. Werler and McCallion (1951:250) mentioned that on two occasions these skinks in Virginia were seen to eat tenebrionid beetles and larvae. Webb (1949:294) fed captive skinks with field crickets (_Gryllus_) and noted that the lizards tended to seize them by the pronotum, and then worked forward to the head, chewing vigorously to disable them. The seized crickets attempted to defend themselves by striking the lizards' faces and eyes with the cerci and tibial spines. Webb also offered his skinks newly hatched snails, _Helix aspersa_, which were noticed and fed upon when they moved. In one instance, he noted that a skink found a quiescent snail, and swallowed it after testing it with the tongue a few times.