212 THE HERPETOLOGY OF CUBA. 



pair of dark bands on the humeral region but the body uniform in colouratiofi. 

 Two identical specimens of this hzard were found the same day near Hato 

 Nuevo but no others were observed. When first caught and brought to Havana 

 we concluded that there could be no doubt but that these two individuals were 

 really very different from both torrei and elegans. Subsequent comparison has 

 but strengthened this and these three species seen in Ufe are vastly more differ- 

 ent in appearance than a comparison of the descriptions shows. A fact which 

 is very frequently the case in this very confusing genus. 



70. Natrix compressicauda (Kennicott). 



Memiso, or 'Miso. 



In March 1918 at the Punta de Judas near the boundary of Camaguey 

 and on the north coast of the Province of Santa Clara the first Natrix to have 

 been seen in Cuba in many years was found (Barbour). The snake about ten 

 inches long was foimd creeping over a narrow mud flat wet with salt water and 

 between tide marks in a region of extensive mangrove swamps. This specimen 

 has been compared with the greatest care with the description of Tropidonotus 

 cubanus Gundlach (Monatsber. Berl. acad., 1861, p. 1001), and both Dr. 

 Stejneger and ourselves have concluded that the example from Punta de Judas 

 agrees well with Gundlach's description. The description, by the way, having 

 recited a scale count within the Umits of variation kno^vn in Trctanorhinus 

 variabilis both Dr. Boulenger (Cat. snakes Brit, mus., 1893, 1, p. 282) and 

 the senior author has previously been misled into con.sidering cubana a synonym 

 of this species. A careful comparison of the specimen from Punta de Judas 

 with the large series of N. compressicauda in the M. C. Z. shows the identity 

 of the Cuban with Floridian examples, and the Cuban snake (scales 21 W) is 

 in practically all respects identical with M. C. Z. 7,786 from Key West. 

 A dark brown almost black snake with faint rather zigzag cross-band visible 

 when the light is favom-able. This discovery reestablishes Natrix as a West 

 Indian genus and relegates the species cubana to the synonymy of compres- 

 sicauda. The habit of living in mangrove swamps and in salt water makes 

 this distribution less remarkable than it would otherwise appear, although it 

 is very noteworthy that the species has crossed the swift Gulf Stream in its 

 migration and that if it has been long established in Cuba that no characteristic 

 variation through isolation has taken place. It must be a recent arrival in 

 Cuba. 



