My granddaughter posed the emerging garter snake video on her Facebook page. I don’t know when or where it was filmed but it reminded me of something I and my students observed in the spring at the South Salem Cemetery. The emergence of hundreds of Gartner snakes from hibernation and the formation of a breeding ball. The smaller males surround a single, larger, female, each trying

to be the winner in the squirm for sexual favors. I posted both my granddaughter’s video and a breeding ball video I found on YouTube.