103 



CORONELLA RHOMBO-MACULATA.— //o/firoo^. 



Plate XXIII. 



Characters. Head short, small; body elongated, covered with smooth scales 

 above and plates below; superior surface chestnut-brown, with a vertebral series 

 of rhomboid light brown spots; abdomen salmon-coloured. PI. 211. Sc. 45. 



Description. The head is small, short, with the snout truncated. The vertical 

 plate is broad and regularly pentagonal, acute-angled posteriorly; the superior 

 orbitals are elongated, quadrilateral, broader behind, narrower before, and of the 

 same length as the vertical, and project but slightly over the eye. The occipital 

 are large, pentagonal, and receive the acute angle of the vertical plate; the frontal 

 are large, pentagonal, broad above and narrow beloAv; the anterior frontal are 

 smaller, quadrilateral, and larger below than above. The rostral plate is penta- 

 gonal, blunt before, broadest and slightly concave below; there are two nasal 

 plates, quadrilateral, nearly of the same form and size; one is lunated before and 

 the other behind. The anterior orbital plate is single, quadrilateral, slightly 

 lunated behind, and large, with a square loral plate in front; there are two 

 pentagonal posterior orbital, the upper rather larger; the inferior wall of the orbit 

 is completed by the third and fourth labial plates, of Avhich there are six, increasing 

 in size from the snout to the angle of the mouth; the first is trapezoidal, the 

 second quadrilatei'al, and the rest are all pentagonal. 



The nostrils are lateral near the snout, and open a little upwards and back- 

 wards. The eyes are rather small, the pupil dusky, with the iris hazel. The neck 

 is slightly contracted. 



