COLUBERORDINATUS. 97 



General Remarks. The first positive notice of this serpent may be seen in 

 Catesby's History of Carolina, &c.; where it is described and figured as the 

 Green Spotted Snake. The figure is tolerable, though it represents the animal 

 with a well marked light coloured vertebral line, which certainly is not very 

 common. Catesby says it grows to nearly four times the size of his figure; 

 which w'ould make it a serpent of nearly four feet in length. He is doubtful 

 about considering it different from the Spotted Riband Snake (pi. 51); which 

 latter I have not been able to identify certainly with any of our serpents, though 

 it seems most to resemble the Coluber Dekayi. Catesby, as usual with most of 

 his snakes, makes it a "great robber of hen-roosts — sucking eggs," &c., which is 

 doing great injustice to the animal. Daudin says, "without doubt the Couleuvre 

 biponctuee of Bosc must be referred to this animal," to which I can by no means 

 consent, never yet having seen the two occipital spots that characterize the 

 animal described by Bosc, while they are always present in the Coluber sirtalis; 

 which was most probably the serpent from which he took his description of the 

 Coluber bipunctatus. 



Vol. IV.— 13 



