78 Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 



recorded by Boulenger in his catalogue was sent to the British Museum. 

 This series has now come to hght and contains both young and adult 

 specimens so that I have been enabled to discover that the individuals 

 upon which I based my Alsophis bruesi from Granada, represent in truth 

 this variable species. I have also found and examined the dentition of 

 Garman's type of his Alsophis pulcher from Testigos Island and am able 

 to verify Boulenger' s action in placing it in the synonymy of Drymobius 

 boddaerti. 



Mr. Noble secured from Terre d'en Haut, Isles des Saintes, a series of 

 twelve Alsophes which seem to represent a local color form. The series 

 is singularly uniform in color and emphasizes the peculiar stability of 

 color among specimens from the same island. Thus every one told him 

 that the Alsophis on Guadeloupe (A. leucomelas D. & B. ) was invariably 

 black, unfortunately it is now probably extinct. All the Guadeloupean 

 examples in the L' Herminier Museum at Point-a-Pitre were black as is 

 one probably from Guadeloupe, collected by Guesde and received by this 

 Museum from the U. S. National Museum. The form on Dominica is 

 very distinct in coloration and I have no doubt but that the variability 

 of color mentioned by some writers was because they had specimens from 

 several islands. We know that Dumeril and Bibron had among the types 

 of A. leucomelas specimens from both Guadeloupe and Martinique. I 

 can not see any reason why when this coloration is stable it should not be 

 just as good a reason for separating races as it is among birds, for instance. 



Alsophis sanctonum sp. nov. 



Type an adult, M. C. Z. No. 10,686, from Terre d'en Haut, Isles des 

 Saintes, near Guadeloupe, French West Indies. 



Similar in squamation to A. leucomelas of Guadeloupe, but light ashy 

 gray instead of dark chocolate brown. Scale formula of type, 19 rows; 

 ventrals 202, subcaudals 118 (tip of tail gone). 



The eleven paratypes show that the range in squamation is scale rows 

 19, ventrals 195-206, subcaudals range doubtful owing to number of tails 

 imperfect but probably from 128 to 139. The only variation in color seen 

 is in that a few examples tend to be light reddish rather than light gray- 

 ish, and one (M. C. Z. No. 10,688) is a little darker reddish and has a 

 dark vertebral line, which is but very faintly indicated in some of the 

 others. There is in all specimens the dark band through the eye extend- 

 ing to the neck region which is seen in so many of the allied forms. 



Doctor Stejneger kindly loaned me for study a considerable collection 

 of reptiles made by L. Guesde and all said to be from Guadeloupe. For 

 his courtesy I extend to him my hearty thanks. I noted, however, species 

 peculiar to Marie Galante, Desirade, Dominica, and probably to three 

 other islands as well as some such as Thecadactyles rapicaudus and 

 Hemidactylus maboiua which might have come from Guadaloupe — or 

 almost anywhere else. I should like, therefore, to warn students against 

 basing any deduction on Guesde' s material which may have been dis- 

 tributed to many museums. Guesde evidently was a worthy follower of 

 Plee, geographically and mentally. 



