griffin: ophidia from south America in carnegie museum 175 



Counts and Measurements. 



Anal 1/1 



Scale-rows 15 



Gastrosteges 181 



Urosteges 96/96 



Upper labials 8(3.4.5) 



Preoculars 1 



Postoculars 2 



Temporals 2,2 



Total length in nun 402 



Length of tail in nim 100 



Genus Dimades Gray. 



16. Dimades plicatilis (Linnaeus). 



Coluber plicatilis Linn^us, Mus. Ad. Frid., 1754, p. 23, PI. VI, fig. 1; Syst. Nat., 



Ed. XII, 1766, I, p. 376. 

 Dimades plicatilis Boulenger, Cat. Snalves, II, 1894, p. 186. 



The single specimen we have is No. 378 of the Catalog of Reptiles in the 

 Carnegie Museum. It was taken by J. D. Haseman at Santarem, Brazil, on 

 December 7, 1909. It is a female, and was captured under a log in the forested 

 lowlands between the Amazon and Tapajos rivers in the act of brooding forty- 

 eight eggs, five of which together with one of the unhatched young were collected 

 by Mr. Haseman and are preserved as C. M. No. 354. Mr. Haseman states that 

 "Sucury" and "Sucurujaba" are the local names of this serpent. 



The shells of the eggs are membranous, thin, and white. The eggs measure 

 35 mm. in length and 25 mm. in width. Considering the advanced stage of de- 

 velopment of the young, there is still a large amount of yolk in the eggs. These 

 eggs seem to have passed through about half of the period of incubation. The 

 unhatched j'oung is 160 mm. long; the length of its tail is 35 mm. The central 

 portion of the back, three scales wide, is light brown; on each side is a dark brown 

 stripe covering the third scale row and the contiguous half of the scale row on 

 either side. A row of small dark dots lies on each side of the vertebral stripe. The 

 intervals between the dorsal and lateral bands, and the ventral surface, are white. 

 The adult female has well-defined lateral dark stripes on the same scale rows as 

 the young, but the dorsal surface between these is uniformly colored except for 

 the two rows of small dark brown spots. The ventral surface of the adult bears 

 four rows of large brown dots. 



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