150 Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 



of head with a dark stripe running through the eye to the angle of the 

 mouth ; an indistinct dark band across the interorbital region ; two other 

 dark stripes running across the temporal regions parallel and posterior to 

 the stripe through tlie ej'e; these posterior stripes are connected by a 

 band which crosses just posterior to the parietal scales, and almost 

 touches two large but rather indistinct nuchal blotches; lower surfaces 

 light olive brown, an ill-defined series of dark olive blotches on the mid- 

 dle of each ventral; these blotches may almost cover the whole scale, or 

 simply show themselves as a small median dot; they are absent from the 

 first eight ventrals and tend to become broader and to cover more of the 

 ventrals posteriorly. 



A second specimen, M. C. Z. No. 10,986, a paratype, having the same 

 data as the type already described, is very similar in all characters to the 

 other specimen. Its ventrals are 144 in number, and the subcaudals 48 

 pairs. On both sides of the head there are three scales in the second 

 series of temporals. The coloration of the dorsal surfaces is very similar 

 to the other, with the exception that the lower lateral row of blotches is 

 fused into a continuous dark band, which is bordered above by a zone 

 slightly lighter than the general ground color. The middorsal light stripe, 

 bounded on each side by the alternating dark blotches, is the same as the 

 other, also the arrangement of the markings of the head. The ventrals 

 are more generally covered by the dark blotches than they are in the 

 type, but the same number of ventrals anteriorly are without the heavy 

 dark blotches. 



