SYSTEMATIC ACCOUNT OF THE SPECIES. 191 



Description: — Adult M. C. Z. 10,836. Cuba: Pinar del Rio; Guane, 

 February, 1915. Thomas Barbour. 



Head not very conspicuously distinct from neck; rostral veiy slightly 

 broader than deep, just visible from above; frontal wide but longer than broad, 

 distinctly shorter than the distance from rostral, longer than the parietals; 

 one (sometunes two) pre- and three (sometimes two) postoculars; nine (or ten) 

 supralabials, of which the fourth, fifth, and sixth enter the orbit; scales smooth 

 in twenty-five (or 27 or 29) rows; ventrals 189 (range, 170-210) anal entire; 

 subcaudals forty-two (range 25-42). 



Colour (in life) : — Reddish or bluish gray, with six or eight more or less 

 regular rows of spots, sometimes hght edged and usually alternating; the two 

 middorsal series by far the largest; belly chi-ome-yellow or ochraceous yellow 

 with usually a double series of dark spots which may be definitely alternating or 

 exactly opposite. 



Dimensions: — Total length 320 mm. 



Vent to tip of tail 40 mm. 



The habits of maculatus are those of the other species of Tropidophis and 

 there seems to be nothing local about its distribution, as it is also found in 

 Jamaica, Haiti, and Navassa Island. In Jamaica it is almost extinct owing to 

 the appetite of the introduced mongoose. In Haiti it is also rare and there is 

 some doubt as to the validity of the form haetiana of Cope based upon Haitian 

 specimens. Its pecuUar character was supposed to be due to the presence of an 

 interparietal, and twenty-nine scale-rows. But all Haitian examples do not have 

 interparietal and although we have not observed the scale ever in specimens 

 from elsewhere; the vaUcUty of haetiana must therefore remain in doubt until a 

 large series from both Cuba and Haiti can be secured. As to the status of 

 the species upon Navassa we know nothing. 



59. Tropidophis semicinctus (Gundlach & Peters). 



Plate 15, fig. 4-6. 



Majci. 



Diagnosis: — A rather small, sluggish, inoffensive constrictor with a double 

 series of large conspicuous dark spots, sometimes confluent into cross-bands 

 one on each side of the distinctly compressed body. 



