91 



COLUBER SmTALlS.—Lin7i(Biis. 



Plate XVI-: 



Characters. Head oval, broad, a yellow spot on each occipital plate; body 

 thick, dusky above, marked with three longitudinal yellow lines; abdomen 

 greenish-yellow, plates with a black blotch near their lateral extremities. PI. 

 141— Sc. 70. 



Synontmes. Coluber sirtalis, Linn., Syst. Nat., torn. i. p. 383. 



Coluber bipunctatus, Lair., Hist. Nat. Rept., torn. iv. p. S5, pi. 30, fig. 2. 

 Coluber sirtalis, Gmel, ed. Syst. Nat. Linn., torn. i. part iii. p. 1107. 

 Coluber sirtalis, Latr., Hist. Nat. Rept., torn. iv. p. 69. 

 Coluber sirtalis, Daud., Hist. Nat. des Rept., torn. vii. p. 146. 

 Coluber sirtalis, Shaiu, Gen. Zool., vol. iii. part ii. p. 535. 

 Coluber sirtalis, Harl., Med. and Phys. Res., p. 116. 

 Striped Snake, Vulgo. 



Description. The head is moderately large, flattened, oval, elongated, with 

 the snout rounded; the vertical plate is very large, pentagonal, broad in front, and 

 rounded where it joins the frontal, and with an angle posteriorly to touch the 

 occipitals; the superior orbitals are single, oblong, and projecting, narrowest in 

 front; the occipitals are large and pentagonal, broad in front, and joined to the 

 superior orbital, as well as to the two upper posterior orbital plates; the frontals 

 are large, broad, and pentagonal; the anterior frontals are also broad, but quadri- 

 lateral, with their posterior and inferior angle prolonged; the rostral plate is 

 heptagonal, concave on its inferior margin, for the mouth; there are two nasal 

 plates, of which the anterior is largest and semilunated, the posterior is 

 pentagonal; behind this is a loral plate, connected above to the frontal, and 



