"The brook, scarcely more than a yard in width, meanders lazily down through a tract of cut-over pasture land and enters an area of second-growth oak and hickory where there is a liberal sprinkling of birch trees. Here it encounters a small granite ledge, and before finding a way around this stony obstacle it backs up enough water to form a miniature lake just about the size of a tennis court. Rank grass grows in tussocks all around the edges, as well as out in the pond, for nowhere is the water more than a foot or so deep. Hardly large enough to interest a self- respecting water snake, this is paradise preferred to the ribbon snakes, and on nearly any sunny day, two or three examples of this slender, vividly marked serpent may be seen lying motionless on some of the floating debris." 1
I. General Information about genus Thamnophis :
Subspecies
Thamnophis sauritus septentrionalis
Thamnophis sauritus nitae
Thamniophis sauritus sackeni (Kennicott) 1859.
Subspecies
Thamnophis proximus rubrilineatus
Thamnophis proximus orarius
Thamnophis proximus diabolicus