75 



COLUBER CONSTRICTOR.— LmwfEMs. 



Plate XIII. 



Characters. Head oval, long; snout prolonged and rather pointed; body and 

 tail long and slender; colour above, uniform bluish-back; abdomen slate-colour, 

 tinged with blue; chin and throat silvery-white, with occasional black spots. 

 PL 176— Sc. 94. 



Stnontmes. Black Snake, Catesby, Carolina, &c., vol. ii. p. 48. pi. xlviii. 

 Coluber constrictor, Linn., Syst. Nat, torn. i. p. 3S5. 

 Black Snake, Kalm, Trav., Foster's Trans., vol. ii. p. 203. 

 Black Snake, Penn., Arct. Zool. Suppl., p. 92. 

 Le Lien, Lacep., Hist. Nat. des Serp., torn. ii. p. 309. 

 Coluber constrictor, Gmel., ed. Syst. Nat. Lin., torn. i. part iii. p. 1109. 

 Colube. „unstrictor, Latr., Hist. Nat. Kept., torn. iv. p. 178. 

 Coluber constrictor, Daud., Hist. Nat. des Rept, torn. vi. p. 402. 

 Coluber constrictor, Shaiv, Gen. Zool., vol. iii. part ii. p. 464. 

 Coluber constrictor. Fit:., Neue Class, der Rept., p. 57. 

 Coluber constrictor, Harl., Med. and Phys. Res., p. 112. 

 Black Snake, Vulgo. 



Description. The head is elongated, oval, with the snout somewhat prolonged 

 and rather pointed; the vertical plate is pentagonal, broader and rounded in 

 front, narrower and with an obtuse angle behind; the superior orbital plates are 

 long, very large, projecting, and quadrilateral in form, rather larger posteriorly; 

 the occipitals are also very large, irregularly pentagonal, broadest before, with 

 three articulating facets for joining with the vertical, superior, and post-orbital 

 plates; the frontals are pentagonal, with their internal borders broadest, and 



