244 VIPERID.E 



sometimes black or steel blue, with or without whitish 

 or reddish dots or spots, sometimes yellowish or 

 pale reddish, with brown dots or marblings ; in 

 some young, white with greyish dots. The throat 

 is yellowish white or pale reddish, uniform or 

 speckled with blackish, sometimes (males) nearly 

 entirely black. The end of the tail is usually bright 

 yellow or reddish, or at least with a few bright spots. 

 And finally we must mention black specimens — some 

 nearly black by darkening of the ground colour, 

 others intensely black by enlargement of the mark- 

 ings. A specimen from Piedmont, in the Turin 

 Museum, shows the ground colour reduced to mere 

 narrow light bars disposed in pairs. In most of 

 these black specimens the chin and throat remain 

 entirely or partially yellowish or reddish, and a few 

 spots of the same colour are to be seen under the 

 end of the tail. 



A remarkable form of V. aspis, which some herpe- 

 tologists would perhaps regard as entitled to rank as 

 a species, is the var. hugyi, Schinz, from Calabria 

 and Sicily. It is in some respects intermediate 

 between V. aspis and V. latastii. The snout is rather 

 more pointed than usual in the typical form, 

 often, though not constantly, more strongly turned 

 up at the end, and the canthus rostralis may be 

 distinctly raised. Constantly two canthal shields, 

 the second in contact with the supraocular. Ventral 

 shields 134 to 148 ; subcaudals 30 to 43. Pale 



