mistake, then retained its hold and commenced swallowing. A similar instance was observed in a brood that I kept in 1962 after hatching had occurred in the laboratory. Hatchling turtles of two kinds (_Chrysemys picta_, _Terrapene carolina_) have been reported in the racer's food. Probably other kinds are eaten also. However, the awkward shape and almost inflexible shell of the prey on the one hand, and the slender form of the racer, with limited distensibility of the gullet on the other, would limit this type of predation to occasional instances involving an unusually large racer and a small turtle. There seem to be no records of the racer preying on salamanders. Many kinds of frogs are eaten, chiefly ranids and hylids, and the leopard frog (_Rana pipiens_) is the most frequent victim. Wright and Bishop (1915:160) stated that the toad (_Bufo terrestris_) occupied first place in the racer's food in the region of Okefinokee Swamp, Georgia, but they mentioned no specific instances of this species being eaten. Klimstra (_loc. cit._) found only four toads in his large sample of digestive tracts from Illinois. Because of their virulent dermal secretions, bufonid toads are avoided by many kinds of snakes and predation on them by the racer probably is unusual. Most authors who have written concerning the food habits of the racer have mentioned insects as part of the diet. Statements in the literature have often seemed to imply that the racer feeds on insects in general, according to their availability. However, the large number of records now available demonstrate that the racer is highly selective in choice of its insect food, that soft-bodied orthopterans, chiefly crickets, grasshoppers and katydids, are the usual insect prey, with occasional predation on moths and their larvae. Eating of other insects such as cicadas and June beetles, is a rarity, but on occasion a racer may be tempted to sample such prey when it finds the newly emerged imago before its exoskeleton has hardened. I am convinced that such rarely occurring items as carabid beetles, hemipterans, homopterans, diplopods and spiders are secondary prey items, eaten by frogs that later were eaten by the snakes, in most instances if not in all. It is noteworthy that several of the same genera of grasshoppers and crickets are prominent in the food samples collected in widely separated parts of the racer's range.