My investigation of the blue racer under natural conditions, combined with a compilation and analysis of published literature, has resulted in a fairly satisfactory understanding of some phases of the species' ecology and natural history, such as the food habits, the growth rate, the extent of home range and of seasonal movements. However, relatively little was learned concerning some phases of the life history. Unfortunately, the traps used did not catch young of the smaller sizes. Facts concerning egg-laying, incubation, and hatching therefore are known chiefly from snakes kept in confinement. Although first-year young were captured by hand from time to time they were obtained in relatively small numbers, and little was learned regarding their population density, movements, or mortality factors. Of course, such hiatuses are to be expected; even in man such enigmas as the disparate sex ratio still challenge the investigator. For the subspecies of racer involved in my field study the widely used vernacular "blue racer" has been adopted in this report. In general I advocate conformity with the vernacular names published by the Committee on Herpetological Common Names (1956). However, in this list, the name blue racer was assigned to _Coluber constrictor foxi_, an invalid subspecies of the Prairie Peninsula that has been relegated (Auffenberg, 1955:92; Smith, 1961:196) to the synonymy of _C. c. flaviventris_. It therefore seems appropriate that the book name "yellow-bellied racer" applied to _flaviventris_ by the Committee should be abandoned for this subspecies, and that the name blue racer be applied officially, as it is in actual practice by both laymen and herpetologists, to all populations of this subspecies. Acknowledgments