COLUBER 189 



Nikolsky), or blackish - grey to black above, dark 

 grey beneath (var. subgriseus, Werner), the angular 

 line on each side of the belly often remaining light. 

 An albino found near Vienna has been described as 

 pale orange-yellow above, with small white spots ; 

 pupil and tongue red. 



Size. — Grows to 6 feet. Specimens over 4J feet 

 are, however, very rarely met with. 



Distribution. — Generally distributed over the 

 greater part of Austria, Italy, with Sardinia and 

 Sicily, and the whole of South-Eastern Europe, this 

 snake has a very broken range in France, Switzer- 

 land, Germany, and is found, quite isolated, as far 

 north as Denmark and Poland. According to 

 Segerus, quoted by Lacepede, it used to be quite 

 common near Copenhagen at the end of the 

 eighteenth century, but it is now much rarer. Its 

 northern limit in France is in Southern Brittany, 

 the Department Orne, and the Forest of Fontaine- 

 bleau ; in Germany, Schlangenbad, near Wiesbaden, 

 perhaps also Baden-Baden and Treves. It is on 

 record from Southern Spain. Its discontinuous 

 distribution in Central Europe, and its presence 

 in various localities near former Roman thermal 

 stations, has been ascribed to its introduction from 

 Italy as an inmate of the temples erected to 

 iEsculapius; but I am more inclined to look upon 

 its sporadic occurrence in the North as the indica- 

 tion of a once more widely distributed species 



