166 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Mar., 



on the venter and sometimes their ends alternate. Frequently, the 

 black bands of a pair have their ends uniting with each other send 

 not with opposite ends. Occasionally the process goes farther and 

 on the sides a black bar extends from one black band to another 

 across the white interval and we have part of a white interval com- 

 pletely encircled by black dorsally and ventrally as well as on the 

 sides. The black band on the neck is not complete on the ventral 

 side in any of the six individuals; ahead of it, comes a white or 

 yellowish-white interval, narrower on the dorsum but wider on the 

 sides where it extends across the angle of the mouth onto the upper 

 posterior labials and on the lower surface of the head. The black 

 occipital bar in one specimen is limited to one occipital; in the 

 others it generally reaches to the temporals and the posterior edge 

 of the frontal and the supraoculars. In one specimen there is a 

 black band back of the eye, and in another the occipital black bar 

 covers the occipitals, most of the frontal, all of the supraoculars, 

 postoculars and 1st temporal and the upper surface of the two 

 posterior supralabials. Sometimes the supralabials near the eye 

 and rarely a few infrala])ials immediately below may have dark 

 margins. 



Dimensions and Variations. — The total length varies from 23.7- 

 57.6 cm.; the tail, 3.4-8.9 cm. or 6-7.2 times in the total length; 

 the gastrosteges are 172-189; the urosteges 39-48; anal entire; 

 the supralabials 7; infralabials 8 except on one side of No. 6,240, 

 where there are 9; the oculars are 1-2. 



From a study of these six specimens from one locality we were 

 led to conclude that Lampropeltis doliatus coccineus and Osceola 

 elapsoidea were the same form, and this conclusion came independ- 

 ently of the previous judgments of Brown, Brimley and others. 

 Brown says,^^ ''t}je head plates and scales are becoming variable, 

 specimens being found without a loreal and with the scales reduced 

 to nineteen rows. This extreme reduction is Osceola elapsoidea 

 B. and G., and is not common, but intermediate stages are frequent; 

 out of some thirty specimens colored as in coccineus I have met 

 with two without a loreal and with 19 rows. The case is peculiar. 

 If constant, the distinction would be a generic one; on the other 

 hand, the importance of the character involved would seem to 

 lift it out of the ordinary category of intergradation, for we appar- 

 ently have a subspecies being transformed under our eyes. On 



*2 Brown, A. E. A Review of the Genera and Species of American Snakes 

 North of Mexico, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., LIII, 1901, p. 74. 



