69 



COLUBER EXIMIUS.— Z)c%. 



Plate XV. 



Characters. Head rather short; snout rounded; body above milk-coloured, 

 with a triple series of dark spots; vertebral range largest, and transversely oval; 

 lateral series smaller, sub-round, with a lighter spot in the centre; abdomen silver- 

 white, each plate marked with one or more quadrilateral black spots, so arranged 

 as to give a tessellated appearance. PL 198. Sc. 47. 



SrNONYMES. Coluber eximius, Dekay, manuscript. 



Coluber eximius, Harlan, Med. and Pliys. Res., p. 133. 

 Coluber calligaster, Hay-Ian, Med. and Phys. Res., p. 122. 

 House Snake or Milk Snake, Vulgo. 



Description. The head is rather short, with the snout rounded; the vertical 

 plate is short, very large, nearly triangular, broad in front, and acute angled 

 behind, with two facets for joining with the occipital plates, Avhich makes it 

 obscurely pentagonal; the superior orbital plate is large, irregularly quadrilateral, 

 broadest behind and slightly projecting; the occipital plates are large, very broad 

 and pentagonal; there are two temporals, quadrilateral, of which the upper is 

 smaller; the frontal plates are hexagonal and large, with their internal margins 

 broadest, and the external reaching between the anterior orbital and posterior 

 nasal to a square loral plate; the anterior frontal are quadrilateral and broadest 

 externally; the rostral plate is short, thick, and rounded in front and above, and 

 concave below; there are two nasal plates, the anterior quadrilateral, incurvated 

 behind; the posterior is elongated, sub-hexagonal, and joined behind to a small, 

 quadrilateral, loral plate, situated in front of the anterial orbital, which is single 



