Mature males have a body length that is, on the average, a little shorter than that of mature females. 2. The red-backed and black-backed phases are approximately equally numerous in the vicinity of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and bear no relation to sex or age. 3. Total egg complements vary from five to thirteen, and the eggs are, on the whole, equally distributed between the two ovaries. 4. There appears to be no correspondence between the length of the female and the total number of eggs produced. 5. Breeding age is attained at the end of the third season, i.e., at about two years of age, and the first eggs are laid in the spring of the fourth season. 6. The mating season is autumn and probably also early spring. 7. Spermatophores have been found in the cloacas of ten females, between the dates October 31 and December 9. 8. The species is active very early in the spring and very late in the autumn. 9. The food is largely spiders, beetles, ants, snails, insect larvae and various small insects.
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Frank N. Blanchard (1928) studied this question.