78 REPTILES. 



under the eye : eyes very small : labial rather broad ; three hinder 

 largest : body fusiform ; scales elongate, lanceolate, flattened, 

 smooth : ventral shields narrow, flat, angularly keeled on each side : 

 tail short ; apex acute, elongate, homy. 



1. The Banded Hipistes. Hipistes fasciatus. 



Pale slate-coloured ; back with a series of truncated blackish 

 spots ; lower part of sides and beneath white ; subcaudal plates 

 dark at each end. 



a. In spirits. Adult ? West Indies. From Mr. Luna's collection. 



**** Frontal shields 4 ; anterior 2, square, like posterior. Scales 



smooth. 



33. Abastor. 



Head indistinct, rather depressed ; crown shielded : occipital 

 large ; vertebral elongate ; frontal two pairs, four-sided, the anterior 

 square smaller ; rostral high, triangular, convex ; nostrils sublate- 

 ral, on a single shield ; loreal none ; oculars small, one anterior and 

 two posterior : lips swollen ; front labial small ; hinder ones very 

 large : eyes very small, over suture of third and fourth labial : tem- 

 poral shields 3, in a single series : body subcylindrical ; scales 

 rhombic, smooth, polished : ventral shield rounded : tail short, ta- 

 pering. 



Known from Coluber by the nostril in a single shield. 

 Helicops sp., Wagler, St/st. Holbrook. Homalopsis sp., Boie. 

 Schlegel. 



1. The Striped Wampum. Abastor erythrogrammus. He- 

 licops erythrogrammus, Wagler, Syst. Amph. 171. Holbrook, N. 

 Amer. Erp. iii. 107, t. 25. Coluber erythrogrammus, Daud. Rept. 

 vii. 93, t. 83, /. 2. Merrem, Tent. 117. Homalopsis erythrogram- 

 mus, Boie, Isis, 1827, 551. Homalopsis plicatilis, var., Schlegel, 

 Phys. Serp. 355. Trop. bipunctatus, part, Schlegel, Phys. Serp. 

 320. 



Bluish black, with three longitudinal red lines ; abdomen with 

 a row of bluish black spots on each side ; tail short, one-eighth the 

 total length. 



a. In spirits. N. America. Presented by the Zoological Society. 



