1903.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 293 



downward prolongations of the upper dark area, with red markings 

 Ijetween {E. parietalis) ; when it extends to the lateral stripe all the 

 spots are obliterated (E. pickeringi). A very few individuals show 

 the bottom part of the lower row also obscured, leaving a series of 

 red spots above {E. concinna) ; or the red has spread longitudinally, 

 forming a red stripe between two black ones (E. s. tetraicBnia) . 



Of the above, the few specimens of E. dorsalis came from the Rio 

 Grande valley, in New Mexico and Texas, except one fugitive noted 

 by Cope from Portland, Ore., thirteen hundred miles away. Of the 

 three tetratcenia which Cope is able to name, two, in the U. S. National 

 .Museum, came from Pitt river, Cal., while the third. No. 6,085 in the 

 Academy's coUecrion, from Puget Sound, originally entered as con- 

 cinna, has the lower black stripe broken up into spots anteriorly. A 

 smaller snake in the same jar as this specimen, and apparently collected 

 with it, is an ordinary parietalis. Hallowell's type of Tropidonotus 

 concin.nus (No. 6,324, Academy collection) is also marked on the 

 label "tetratcenia'' by Cope. All these specimens have now been fifty 

 years in spirits. The three concinna cited by Cope all came from western 



Oregon. 



With the exception of E. s. pickeringi, these selections of special 

 cases in a physiological process appear to me quite arbitrary, and if 

 the correctness of the method is once admitted, an indefinite number 

 of others may as well be allowed. 



Baird and Girard's type of Tropidonotus ordinoides' came from 

 Puget Sound, and the original description cannot be reconciled with 

 tha't given of California specimens under the same name by these 

 authors in their Catalogue of the following year. The type was prob- 

 ably an E. s. leptocephala. Those subsequently described had 19-21 

 rows of scales, and the chief difference from ordinary parietalis was 

 that the lateral spots were reddish-brown instead of red. A California 

 example is figm-ed by Baird* with the form of head and the long posterior 

 chin-shields of parictcdis, and 8 labials, but as the last-named species 

 sometimes exhibits this number, it seems safe to refer ordinoides here, 

 rather than to regard it with Cope as a subspecies of E. elegans. 



E. infernalis inferncdis Cope has been shown to be E. e. elegans, but 

 Coluber infernalis Plain, occupies a somewhat doubtful position through 

 the insufficiency of the original description and plate. Bocourt^ adds 

 that it has 19 rows and 7 labials, which is the common formula for 



' Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1852, p. 176. 

 8 Pac. R. R. Report, PI. XXVI, fig. 3. 

 '■> Bull. Soc. Zool. de France, 1892, p. 40. 



