Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson L · Topic 5: Reptile study
50. The milk snake, or spotted adder
Goal: Your child can describe the milk snake's blotched pattern, explain why it lives around barns, and say why the story that it milks cows is false.
You'll need
- A field guide or app with a picture of the milk snake (and of any venomous look-alikes where you live)
- A visit to a barn, farm or nature center, if possible
- Colored pencils
- Nature notebook
What's in the book
The leading thought (it hunts rats and mice around stables but never milks the cows), the method (Comstock says it is harmless and may be caught for study) and five questions about where it is found and why it is called milk snake, its food and how it kills, its eggs and young, its colors and markings, and how snakes shed their skins. A passage from Thoreau's journal about snake stories follows.
The lesson, step by step
When and where
Late spring through early fall, around barns, stone walls, woodpiles and old buildings, mostly at dusk and night. You are more likely to see one at a nature center than in the wild, so pictures are fine for this lesson.
Safety: never pick up or touch a wild snake, even one you think is harmless; watch from at least two big steps away and let it go on its way. Before you go out, learn which venomous snakes live where you live (rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths or coral snakes in parts of the United States), and look before you put hands or feet under logs, rocks or into tall grass. Milk snakes look a little like copperheads, and some kinds have red, black and yellow bands like coral snakes, so never guess; just leave every snake alone.
Keep the big idea in mind
Read this to yourself:
The milk snake is found around stables where it hunts for rats and mice but never milks the cows.
Comstock's method says it "may be captured in the hands." The guide skips that part: watch, or use pictures.
The milk story
Where is the milk snake found? Why is it called milk snake?
Comstock's teacher's story laughs at the old belief: it "would not milk a cow if it could, and it could not if it would." Ask: Why might farmers have seen milk snakes in barns? (Comstock says it hunts rats and mice there.)
Food
What does it live upon? How does it kill its prey?
It is a constrictor: it squeezes its prey in its coils.
Colors
Describe carefully the colors and markings of the milk snake and explain how its colors protect it from observation.
Use the field guide picture. Look for the saddle-shaped blotches.
Shed skins
Have you ever seen a snake shed its skin? Describe how it was done. How does the sloughed-off skin look?
If you find a shed skin, look at it with a hand lens: you can see every scale, and even the clear eye caps. Wash hands afterward.
What bird always puts snake skins around its nest?
The great crested flycatcher is famous for this.
Put it into words
Ask your child why a farmer should be glad to have a milk snake in the barn. Then share the leading thought.
Nature notebook
Draw a milk snake's pattern, or a shed snakeskin if you found one. Write: "It never milks cows. It eats mice."
Afterwards
Read the Thoreau passage on the page together. Ask: Why do snake stories grow bigger every time they are told?
Tip
Comstock suggests trying to get the snake to drink milk. Please don't; milk is not food for snakes.