376 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF ! 1895. CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ZOOLOGY OF TENNESSEE. No. 1, REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS. BY SAMUEL N. RHOADS. The following is the first of a series of papers treating of the collections of Mammals, Birds, Reptiles and Mollusks made for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia by the writer during a trip through Tennessee, in the months of May and June, 1895. Entering the northwestern corner of the State April 29th, collect-ing was carried on at the following stations in order of sequence. 1. Samburg (Wheeling), Obion County; April 30th to May 6th, a small village on the eastern shore of Reelfoot Lake, at the mouth of Indian Creek. This region lies at the foot of the Mississippi Bluff, which makes its nearest approach to the lake at this point, the strip of intervening land on which the village is built being about a quarter of a mile wide. The bluff is precipitous, rising more than 100 feet above the lake in this vicinity, and clothed with fine forests of beech, oak and chestnut, the first largely predominat-ing. The bottom lands surrounding the lake increase in extent both north and south of the Indian Creek confluence, and their whole extent, to within a few rods of the bluff, is annually flooded during high water in the Mississippi River. The flora of these bottoms is of the most luxuriant description, immense growths of of cypress, cottonwood, gum and maple fringing the shores and extending in unbroken areas back to the deforested crests of the escarpment. Beneath these is an undergrowth of vines and cane which is almost impenetrable except where the annual brush firing by the farmers and woodsmen has opened a passage way, or the grazing of sheep and cattle and the rooting of swine have destroyed the underbrush. The lake itself is eighteen miles long, its width varying from one-half to three miles, the greatest breadth being directly along a line passing a little north of west through Samburg.
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