HETERODON. 



53 



the scales on the tall larger than on the greater part of the body. 

 In young specimens is distinctly visible a second series of still smaller 

 blotches, below the one just mentioned, there being two of these op- 

 posite each one of the former, and placed on the 2d, 3d, and 4th 

 exterior rows. Beneath greenish yellow, with obsolete greenish 

 brown blotches, indistinctly visible through the epidermis, some- 

 times more conspicuous in young specimens. 



There is a transverse black or dark bar on the forehead, crossing 

 the posterior half of the postfrontals, involving only the anterior 

 edge of the vertical, and the anterior corners of the superciliaries. 

 Behind this a dark patch, with its anterior margin a little back of 

 the middle of the vertical, and involving the adjoining margin of the 

 superciliaries and occipitals, together with the greater portion of the 

 occipitals ; sometimes with a light spot in the middle : the light 

 space included between the two patches appears to extend continu- 

 ously backwards to the neck; above a dark vitta from the back 

 part of the orbit to the posterior labial, itself a continuation of the 

 frontal vitta. An elongated narrow vertebral spot behind the junc- 

 tion of the occipitals, and generally isolated from them, on each side 

 of which is a similar patch widening behind. 



This species is subject to great variations of color. Sometimes the 

 sides of the dorsal blotches pass insensibly into the ground-color, so 

 as to become transverse bands. At others they are light internally, 

 with a narrow margin of black. Occasionally there is much black on 

 the abdomen (in young specimens). The ground-color varies from 

 gray to bright yellow, and sometimes even red. It may also happen 

 that, by the confluence and extension of the darker margins, we have 

 light bars on a dark ground, as on a specimen from the Scioto valley, 

 Ohio, where, with the other characters similar, the color is of a dark 

 brown above and on the sides, with transversely quadrate brownish 

 ash-colored spots along the back, some one and a half or two scales 

 lone, 9 or 10 wide, and at intervals of about three scales. Of 

 these spots there are 28 from head to anus, and about 9 on the tail, 

 where they form half rings, with intervals a little larger than them- 

 selves. 



Carlisle, Pa. 129+1. 53. 25. 



" 123+1. 49. 25. 



Clarke Co., Va. 143 + 1. 46. 25. 



'< 127+1. — 25. 



Anderson, S. C. — — — 



