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Milk Snake
Colouration.—Gray above, with a series of large, chestnut-brown or olive-brown saddles on the back, these narrowly bordered with black. The blotches extend down the sides to about the fifth row of scales (above the abdominal plates). In alternation with the blotches on the back, is a series of smaller blotches on the side.
Dimensions.—The common Milk Snake attains a length of three and a half feet, but such dimensions are above the average, which is given:
Distribution.—The southern New England States southward to North Carolina and westward to Illinois and Wisconsin. This serpent is particularly abundant in the counties of Ulster, Green, Delaware and Sullivan, of New York State.
This is the largest of the varieties of O. doliatus--the Southern Milk Snake--and the most distinct from it in pattern as a spotted snake. It attains a length of about a yard, is moderately slender, cylindrical in shape, and possesses a small head which is but little distinct from the neck. The scales are perfectly smooth, of a satiny lustre, and in 21 rows.
The first of the series of central blotches--this covering the head and a portion of the neck, is elongated and encloses a triangular patch of the pale ground-colour, the point directed toward the body; the base of this triangle is niched by the dark colour of the blotch, on many specimens, imparting a forked outline to that part of the triangle directed toward the head. A narrow band extends from behind the eye to the angle of the mouth.
The abdomen is white, marked boldly and irregularly with square black spots and blotches.
Colouration of the young.--A newly hatched specimen shows the same pattern as the parent, but the blotches on the back and the sides are distinctly reddish, and bordered with jet-black.
Half-grown specimens usually possess rich crimson blotches and at this stage resemble in their colours the more Southern Milk Snake--the variety clericus--from which they may be distinguished by the shape of the pale patch of ground-colour within the first blotch of the upper series and the generally narrower character of the blotches.
Total Length . . . . . 34 inches.
Length of Tail . . . . . 5 inches.
Greatest Diameter . . . . . 5/8 inches.
Width of Head . . . . . 5/8 inches.
Length of Head . . . . . 1 inches.
Habits of the Milk Snake
From the habit of prowling about the vicinity of stables and dairies (in search of mice and rats), this prettily coloured snake has acquired the bad reputation of stealing milk from the cows, and making inroads upon the farmer's product to such an extent that he may actually suffer financial loss from the depredations committed by one of these reptiles. This is one of the many fallacies existing about snakes, and resulting in an unjust slaughter of really useful creatures. Snakes show no liking for milk. Captive specimens cannot be induced to drink it unless suffering from great thirst. It would be a feat beyond physical possibility for a serpent the size of the largest Milk Snake to consume enough milk from a cow--if the reptile should be so inclined--to produce an effect noticeable to the most minute degree. When mature, this snake attains a length of about a yard, and is of rather slender build. A serpent of this size could consume, if drinking its full of water, a quantity equivalent to about two teaspoonsful; this would demonstrate its capacity for milk, and any cow that fed upon the scantiest vegetation that ever graced sterile soil should yield enough milk to allow for this quantity to be lost without being noted by the dairyman. Incidentally it might be explained that the Milk Snake frequents country where the grazing is good and the cattle yield much milk. In the face of these circumstances the reader is asked to ponder on the logic of the farmer who declares that a single "Milk" Snake can steal enough milk from one of his cows to produce a marked deficiency to be noted at milking time.
The Milk Snake is a rather secretive species, hiding under flat stones or debris and preferring to prowl late in the day or at twilight than during the brightest hours of light. It is particularly fond of small rodents, and feeds largely upon mice and young rats. Like all the snakes of the genus Ophibolus, its habits incline toward cannibalism, and it feeds frequently upon the young of other snakes, besides such lizards as the "blue-tail" and the swift, which it hunts at night as these creatures take refuge in the crevices of bark on fallen trees. The writer dissected a specimen that had been killed in a barn, in Sullivan County, N. Y. The stomach contained five very young rats. Confronted by this demonstration of the reptile's useful habits, the man who had killed the snake stubbornly remarked that "a snake is a snake" and refused further argument.