NATURAL SCIENCES OP PHILADELPHIA. 61 



of the serpent above described, resemble much those of Triglophodon fuscum, 

 also from the Gaboon, (D. and B. vol. vii. p. 1102, Appendix,) but it has three 

 channelled posterior teeth. There can be no doubt that although allied, Toxi- 

 codryas and Trit^^lophodon are distinct genera; compared with a specimen of Tri- 

 glophodon dendrophilum from Java, of which we have a fine specimen in our 

 colleclion, due to the liberality of the administration of the Garden of Plants, 

 through Prof. Dumeril, we find that the scales in T. Blandingii are more narrow, 

 the tail lousrer and more slender, and the plates upon tlie head different ; the 

 vertical in T. Blandingii is much more narrow posteriorly, the rostral not so 

 high, the parietals are much smaller; there are ?m-o pre-oculars, and the in- 

 ferior margin of the orbit is formed by the fourth, fifth and sixth supra-labials ; 

 in Triglophodon by the third, fourth and fifth, &c. Both have a large row of 

 scales along the middle of the back. Toxicodryas is a genus quite distinct from 

 Tarbophis, (Ailurophis, Bonap.) 



Sub-Old. Proterogli/phs. 



Among the serpents in the collection of Dr. Ford, is one of the black variety 

 of Naja, six feet 31 inches in length. There is also a younger and much more 

 slender specimen. Besides these we have another and much larger one than 

 either, presented several years ago by Dr. Ford, measuring G ft. 9,] inch. (Fr.) in 

 length. Neither of these correspond with the description or figure of the 

 black variety of Naja haje in Dr. Smith's work on the Reptiles of Southern 

 Africa. The most striking difference consists in the coloration, the South 

 African species being uniformly black below, the variety from the Gaboon hav- 

 ing upon the anterior part of the abdomen a greater or less number of black 

 bands of unequal breadth, the interspaces being yellow, the throat and chin also 

 yellow, (white probably during life). Dumeril and Bibron state that the Mu- 

 seum of Paris possesses three large specimens of the black variety described by 

 Dr. Smith, one from Senegal, one from Morocco, the third from the White Nile, 

 They admit but two species of Naja, the tripudians and haje ; in the first the 

 sixth superior labial is quite small, in the latter very large ; which also wants 

 the spectacle figure upon the neck, and the neck is less dilatable. 



This difference between the labial plates, however, is presumed to be not an 

 invariable character. In the plate of Naja haje in the great work on Egypt, 

 there are several black bands passing across the abdomen, near its middle, one of 

 them very broad, more so than in any of the Gaboon specimens, which in that 

 variety are also situated much more anteriorly. Dumeril and Bibron state that 

 in the greater part of the specimens they possess from Java, Sumatra, China and 

 difl'erent regions of the East there are several gastrostega of a beautiful black, 

 forming a transverse band more or less broad, followed by other scutes of a 

 white color. Comparing the large Gaboon specimen with A. tripndians, from 

 Bengal, I find a single dark colored band nine lines in breadth, running 

 across the anterior part of the abdomen, quite near to the throat, and as 

 stated by Prof. Schlegel the sixth supra-labial much smaller than the cor- 

 responding one in the African species. In the tripudians this plate is sepa- 

 rated from the post-oculars by a large plate, in N. haje it is in contact with 

 them. There is a difference in the proportional size of the inter-nasals and 

 pre-frontals, but this may be merely the effect of age ; for, although the former 

 are comparatively much smaller than the latter in the adidt W. African speci- 

 mens, they more nearly correspond in the younger individual as they do in that 

 from Bengal. The frontal plate is pentagonal in both, but in the Asiatic 

 specimen it is quite narrow.* In the E. India serpent there are 23 rows of 

 scales near the middle of the body, in the Gaboon but 19. We have not the 

 materials for a thorough study of the two admitted species, but consider those 

 from Gaboon as belonging to a variety of the haje, for which the name melano- 



* In the plate of the head of the tripudians in Prof. Traill's translation of 

 Schlegel it is represented as quite broad, perhaps the adult. 



1857.] 



