An encounter between a large blue racer and an adult Great Plains skink (_Eumeces obsoletus_) on August 30, 1948, was described as follows: "The skink, grasped by one flank, had twisted back and seized the skin of the snake's neck in a bulldog grip, and they lay interlocked, motionless except for their rapid panting, and occasional straining of the skink to bite harder or of the snake to shift its grip and work its jaws toward the skink's head. The racer broke the skink's grip, and began to swallow it head first. When only the hind legs and tail of the skink still protruded from the racer's mouth, I lunged forward in an attempt to catch both reptiles. With a sudden movement the snake disgorged the skink, which darted away into the grass and escaped" (Fitch, 1955:78). _Composition of Food_ Many authors have contributed to knowledge of the racer's food habits. In most instances the records have been few or casual, but several intensive studies have been made, notably by Surface (1906) in Pennsylvania, Ortenburger (1928) for the species as a whole, Uhler, Cottam and Clark (1939) in Virginia, Clark (1949) in Louisiana, Auffenberg (1949) in southern Texas, Hamilton and Pollack (1956) in Georgia, and Klimstra (1959) in southern Illinois. However, the findings of different authors are not strictly comparable; some have made general statements concerning the food habits but have mentioned specific items only when these were considered unusual. Certain authors have listed individual prey animals eaten; others have indicated the percentages (in bulk or in frequency) that the different kinds of prey comprised. Some writers have identified food animals only in broad categories such as "insect," "beetle" or "snake" while others have undertaken specific determinations for all the prey or for certain taxonomic groupings that were subjects of special interest.