80 



a total of over ninty thousand. The accompanying sketches show 

 firstly the general disposition of the teeth upon the lingual ribbon, 

 as viewed under a 2-inch lens, then the structure of the individual 

 teeth as demonstrated by ^th power. 



Of the genitalia the penis sac is subcylindrical, performing a 

 half revolution at its apex, from which is continued a narrow 

 tube containing the spermatophore at its junction with the 

 vas deferens, and terminating in a flagellum. The genital 

 bladder is small, seated on a short duct wliich communicntes with 

 the vagina near the common orifice. 



DESCRIPTION OF VERMICELLX BERTHOLDI. 

 By J. Dour4LAS Ogilrv. 



Vermicella BERTHOLDI, Jan. Icon. gt'n. des Ophid. 



Scales in fifteen rows ; abdominal plates 122 ; two anal plates; 

 sub-caudal plates in two rows, 21/21. Body stout, rounded, the 

 tail very slightly compressed and short, about one-tenth of the 

 total length, and terminating in a blunt conical scale. Head 

 small, not distinct from the trunk. Rostral shield large, obtusely 

 angulated posteriorly, and conspicuously produced backwards on 

 the upper surface of the head : nostril oval, pierced in the middle 

 of an acutely angulated cuneiforui nasal : anterior frontals* 

 quadrangular or pentagonal, rounded, or very obtusely angulated 

 anteriorly ; posterior frontals pentagonal, bent downwards on the 

 side of the head, so as to form a suture with the nasal, thus 

 replacing the loreal : vertical hexagonal much longer than broad, 

 obtusely angular in front and acutely so behind : supra-ocular 

 large, pentagonal : one anterior and two posterior oculars : 

 occipital shields large, pentagonal or hexagonal, much broader in 

 front than behind : three temporal shields, the first the largest, 

 in contact with the two posterior oculars, and produced down- 

 wards so much as almost to divide the two last upper labials : 

 six upper labials, the third and fourth entering the eye, the last 

 the largest : six lower labials, the first elongate, forming a broad 

 suture behind the triangular mental, the second small, the third 

 and fourth the largest : two chin shields on each side : numerous 

 scales between the chin shields and the first abdominal plate. 

 Scales smooth. Colors — All the anterior and lateral head-shields 

 cream color with or without black freckles ; occipital shields with 



* In one specimen the anterior and i^osterior frontal on the right side 

 are fused into one larj^e shield. 



