By Ian MacQuarrie and Kate Warren

A snake is a beautiful thing. Karen Blixen

Serpents are the most ungentle and barbarous of beasts.

E. Topsell (1658)

"or lovers of reptilia, Prince Edward Island is a desolate place. Turtles

and tortoises are unknown. Alligators and crocodiles are distant memories. There are no lizards. We do, however, have relatively low populations of a few kinds of snakes.

While our eyes may long for things that slither, it is an uncommon day that provides such visions. Even in Island place names, snakes suffer anonymity. We acknowledge a few mammals, the odd insect, even an amphibian or two — but no Rattlesnake Rock, no Black Snake Crossing, no Garter Snake Road. Per-haps this is simply indicative of the (gen-erally biased) outlook of humans toward their distant cousins, or, more charita-bly, it is simply oversight.

Snakes have been around for quite some time, since the late Mesozoic Age at least. They survived while many of their more celebrated relatives, such as

dinosaurs, were driven to extinction. It thus seems appropriate to take a closer look at these legless lizards, and to speculate on what makes a snake a bio-logically good idea.

The Earth Dancer

Some things are rather obvious: dry skins and shelled eggs provided a good deal of independence from water, and thus opened up much of the terrestial world for exploration and colonization. More-over, snakes have brilliant internal modifications. In order to maximize the serpentine shape, the organs are stag-gered, one behind its partner, rather than in the side-by-side pattern familiar in mammals. Most snakes are "one-lungers"; there is thus no need for an expanded chest cavity. The gut is essen-tially a long, straight tube, with little enlargementorcoiling. All ofthese things allow the long, slender, powerful body to move with great agility and considerable quickness, using wave-like flexing movements. It is this graceful earth dancing that fascinates many of us.

Snakes move gracefully, but perhaps not as fast as most people think: five to

ten kilometers per hour (for short bursts) would be maximal. The illusion of speed comes from the rapid acceleration from rest; a snake seems to be able to disap-pear with magical ability, darting from a favourite sunning spot to cover in a sec-ond or two. If you want to capture one, you must be quick.

Snake-Stories

Our Island snakes have usually been ignored. In the accounts of early travel-lers, they generate only a line or two. For instance, Edward Walsh, who spent a couple of weeks here in 1803, wrote a quite detailed account of the local flora and fauna, but dismissed the snakes with, 'There are snakes but none venomous." Even our famous local naturalist, Francis Bain,* dealt with reptiles in a few sen-tences, listing the Garter Snake, a Black Snake, a Green Snake, and a Striped

*See Kathy Martin's "Francis Bain, Farmer Naturalist," in Number 6 (Spring-Summer 1979). Edward Walsh's account is re-printed in "An Account of Prince Edward's Island, 1803," in Number 15 (Spring- Summer 1984).

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Snake — four species, scarcely described. Later naturalists such as Blythe Hurst added little.

Early accounts of the life and times of local snakes contain as much misinformation as accu-rate description. In the 1870s, Mellish described five species: Garter Snake, Black Snake, Red-Bellied Snake, Striped Snake, and Green Snake. However, his descriptions are interspersed with accounts of snakes charm-ing birds, of snakes swallowing their young to protect them, of snakes attacking humans, and other fanciful folk-tales. He also seems to have expanded the sizes of local specimens, a practice continued to this day by otherwise sober citizens.

The best information avail-able here comes from collec-tions in the 1950s and 1960s by Bleakney and Thomas. Itisfrom their records and documented specimens that we can list the species that undoubtedly do occur here. It is distressing to note that only three species share the Island way of life. These are the Maritime Garter Snake, the Northern Red-Bel-lied Snake, and the Eastern Smooth Green Snake. Let us characterize these inoffensive animals.

Life and Times

The Garter Snake might have been chosen as Canada's na-tional symbol (the Rattlesnake is said to have been in the run-ning as the American symbol, losing out to the Bald Eagle); it exists in one type or another in all provinces except Newfound-land. The Garter is the Island's most common snake, easy to recognize because of its three yellow stripes, although many colour phases are found in dif-ferent areas of the country. As a rule it is friendly and easily handled.

The Northern Red-bellied Snake is much less frequently seen. It is a tiny, engaging snake with secretive habits, primarily found in woodlands. Its name Northern Red-bellied Snake snake.'

notwithstanding, the Red-belly's identifying feature is a yellowish "necklace," which stands out from its relatively dull ground colours.

The Eastern Smooth Green Snake is usually called the "grass snake" because of its uniform light-green colour. It is seldom seen since its protective colouration blends it neatly into the background grass. This is our only egg-laying snake; the others give birth to livingyoung.

Island snakes pursue a varied diet. Contrary to Genesis 3:16 — dust is remarkably indigest-ible — they eat insects, slugs, worms. Since snakes do have the interesting ability to unhinge their lower jaws, they can eat surprisingly large food objects: alargeGarterwilleatbirds'eggs or frogs, for instance. In any case, their feeding habits are in no sense harmful to Man — although one should beware of talking snakes in orchards. If sufficiently annoyed, they will try to consume a finger. After all, if you poke a finger into any animal's mouth, you must ex-pect it to be regarded as food.

The activity patterns of Island snakes are highly seasonal, since environmental tempera-tures affecttheir ability to move. In spring and fall, particularly in cool mornings, they will be tor-pid and easily caught. In winter they must get below the frost line for survival. Garters fre-quently den in companionable numbers below rock piles or wood piles. They also like the old- fashioned country cellar.

Civil Serpents

Snakes have gotten rather a bad press over the years. The Bibli-cal snake with its evil ways has been used for centuries as an excuse for tormenting these usually harmless animals. Hu-man interactions with snakes have been extraordinarily com-plex throughout history: cursed religiously, yet a symbol of medicine; used as weapons of war, yet employed to cure headaches — even to prevent

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Scientific Name

Size Range

Colours

Habitat

Reproduction

Snakes of Prince Edward Island Maritime Garter

Thamnophis sirtalis pallidiila

60420 cm.

Back: brown to black Belly: pale green to yellow Stripes: one yellow stripe along the back and another on each side. Spots: black spots may be found between the stripes.

Damp areas; ditches; forest edges; yards & vacant lots; stream edges; swamps

Young are bom alive 10-30 young per litter. Born in July & August. Ave. 18 cm, at birth.

Northern Red-bellied

Storeria occipitomaculata occipitomaculata

^^^^^^^^^^H^^^H Back: brown to black Belly: pale to dark red Stripes: one light stripe down the back; often another less visible stripe on each side. Spots: three yellow spots at the base of the head.

Damp areas; woodlands; bogs; swamps.

Young are born alive 1-13 young per litter. Born in August Ave. 8 cm. at birth

Eastern Smooth Greer*

Opheodrys vernalis vernalis

40-60 cm.

Back: pale to darker green. Belly: pale yellow to white Stripes: none Spots: none

Grassy areas: meadows; marshes; bogs.

Lays eggs, 6-12 eggs Hatch in August & Sept. Ave. 11cm. at hatching.

the Bubonic Plague! Terms such as "snake-oil" and "snake in the grass" are still common in the language.

Yet the fascination with snakes has never extended to Prince Edward Is-land. Our local snakes are sometimes persecuted, but are commonly ignored by all but curious naturalists. Collec-tively they make up an often-misunder-stood part of our natural history.

There are no Island snake-watching societies as yet. There should be.

Sources

The general biology of snakes is ad-equately dealt with in many standard texts; we particularly enjoyed the ac-count in Robert Orr's Vertebrate Biology (Saunders, 1966). Mellish's uncritical account may be found in the venerable transactions of the Nova Scotia Institute of Science (1876). His paper is engag-ingly titled "Notes of the Serpents of Prince Edward Island." Sherman Bleakney considered reptiles and am-phibians of the Maritimes in a National Museum Bulletin (No. 155) published in 1958. Thomas's collection was described in the Canadian Field Naturalist in 1965. We are indebted to Francis Cook not only for his publication on Prince Ed-ward Island Herpetofauna (National

Garter Snake

Museum, No. 212,1967), but also for a pleasant personal conversation with one of us.

We highly recommend The Highly Bible (various authors) for its interesting approach to 'Things that Slither." im

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