Rat Woods, an area of approximately four acres, was like Skink Woods, formerly the upper part of a connecting strip between hilltop and valley pastures and was altered by the effect of concentrated trampling and browsing by livestock. It is V-shaped, with the apex at the north end, and the slope exposures southwest and southeast. The area is bisected from north to south by a small gully, and remains of an old rock wall. To the east of this gully the lower outcrop is prominent but west of the gully, it is but little developed. As compared with other wooded areas, this one was relatively dry. Trees, and other vegetation in general, are somewhat more xeric in aspect than are those in Skink Woods. Along the upper ledge are elms and hackberries, with many thick clumps of fragrant sumac. The trees are mainly elm, walnut, honey locust, and osage orange with hardly any oaks or hickories and, with shrubby undergrowth of dogwood, gooseberry, and coralberry sparser than in adjacent woodlands. Herbaceous vegetation consists largely of muhly grass, geum, and avens. On the hilltop edge above the ledge are many flat rocks of varying sizes, and the slope is thickly strewn with rocks, some of the larger ones deeply embedded in the soil. The population of five-lined skinks was relatively sparser than in Skink Woods. Other reptiles including the Sonoran skink, racerunner, glass-snake, worm snake, ring-necked snake, blue-racer, bull snake, pilot blacksnake, garter snake, scarlet king snake, slender tantilla, and copperhead, were more numerous in this area than in most other parts of the Reservation. The comparatively scarce prairie skink was found only in this area, and the scarlet king snake and slender tantilla were found only here and at the quarry. The Annual Cycle of Reproduction and Growth SEASONAL OCCURRENCE