BRANSON : SNAKES OF KANSAS. 



391 



by intervals of one or two scales. They are narrowly margined 

 with black. On each side of the dorsal series, and alternating 

 with it, is a series of smaller, nearly circular, but similarly con- 

 stituted blotches extending between the third and seventh or 

 eighth rows. Below this, and on the second and third rows, is 

 a still smaller and quite distinct third series, and occasionally 

 traces of a fourth on the first and second. The ground color or 

 space between the blotches is grayish ash ; each scale minutely 

 mottled with dark brown or black ; the extreme border gener- 

 ally pure ash, especially on the sides. Beneath yellowish white, 

 with rather indistinct blotches of brownish ash, thickest behind. 



Fig. 18. 

 Coluber emoryi B. and G. 



Head grayish ash, with a somewhat curved, broad, brown 

 vitta on the back part of the postfrontals, which, involving the 

 commissure of the anteorbital and superciliary, passes back 

 through the eye, and, crossing the angle of the mouth on the 

 adjacent halves of the ultimate and penultimate labials, extends 

 into the blotches on the sides of the neck. A second nearly ef- 

 faced bar crosses the anterior frontals, leaving an ash-colored 

 band half the width of the first-mentioned bar. The anterior 

 dorsal blotch is replaced by two elongated ones running up on 

 the head to the center of the occipitals, parallel with the post- 



