99 



COLUBER SIPEDON.— Lmn«:?<s. 



Plate XIX. 



Characters. Head large, oval, flattened above; snout rounded; body dusky 

 above, with a row of subquadrate reddish-brown blotches on the flanks, connected 

 by a transverse dirty white bar, margined with black. PI. 145 — Sc. 67. 



Synonymes. Coluber sipedon, Linn., Syst. Nat, torn. i. p. 379. 

 Le sipede, Lacip., Hist. Nat. des Serp., torn. ii. p. 305. 

 Coluber sipedon, GmeL, ed. Syst. Nat. Linn., torn. i. part iii. p. 1098. 

 Coluber sipedon, Latr., Hist. Nat. Rept., torn. iv. p. 177. 

 Coluber sipedon, Baud., Hist. Nat. des Rept., torn. vii. p. 148. 

 Coluber sipedon, Shato, Gen. Zool., vol. iii. part ii. p. 496. 

 Coluber sipedon, Harl., Med and Phys. Res., p. 114. 

 Coluber cauda shistosus, Harl., Med. and Phys. Res., p. 124. 

 Water Snake, Vulgo. 



Description. The head is large, oval, flattened above, with the snout rounded; 

 the vertical plate is pentagonal, broad, and nearly of the same size throughout; 

 the superior orbitals are elongated, narrow, quadrilateral, broadest behind; the 

 occipital plates are very large, oblong, and broadest before; the frontals are 

 subhe.xagonal and large; the anterior frontals are smaller, and of subtrapezoidal 

 form; the rostral plate is hexagonal, short, small, truncated in front, rounded 

 above and concave below; there are two quadrilateral nasals, the anterior lunated 

 behind, and the posterior crescentic in front, to form the nostrils, which are 

 lateral and near the snout; the anterior orbital plate is single, pentagonal, 

 elongated, most extensive vertically, passing in between the frontal and superior 

 orbital, though it does not completely separate them as in the Coluber ordinatus; 



