154 PROCEEDTNaS OF THE NATTONAL MUSEUM. 



SALVADORA HEXALEPIS (Cope). 



Three specimens from Fort Huachuca, two young ones by Dr. 

 Wilcox (Nos. 17792, 17793) from the immediate vicinity of the fort, 

 and one by Dr. Fisher (No. 22201), collected April 28, 1892. 



None of these specimens possess the subocular which orave rise to 

 establishment of the name hexalepis^ and which has been variously con- 

 sidered as characteristic of a subspecific form inhabiting the more 

 western deserts.^ Mr. van Denlnirgh' has shown that this character is 

 not constant enough to warrant the I'ctention of a subspeciiic form 

 thus restricted. 



The use of the name Salvad<>r(( //^',w/,:^y->/.vfor our specimens therefore 

 requires an explanation. By a careful examination of a large number 

 of specimens from Texas on the one side, and from Arizona and farther 

 west on the other, 1 found that the former belong to the species called 

 Salvador'^ haird! by Jan, having all the essential characters of this 

 form, hitherto attributed to Mexico onh', remarking at the same time 

 that these differences are those of scutellation, not of color, which is 

 equally and similarly variable in both species. It now turns out, how- 

 ever, that Baird and Girard's type specimen of Salvadora graham'tm 

 belongs to the eastern species and that Jan's S. haird'i consequently is a 

 pure S3^nonym. The Arizona and California species therefore can not 

 remain under the old name S. grahaiiil(V^ but S. hexalepU, being based 

 upon an Arizona specimen perfectly typical of the species, becomes 

 available. 



The S3 nonymy of the two species Avouid thus stand as follows: 



SALVADORA GRAHAMIiE Baird and Girard. 



X^Z.—Salvadoragrahamiit' Baird and Girard, Serp. N. Am.. \<. 101. 

 I860.— ,Sa7('ar?ora ban-f/i Jax, Icon. Gon. Ophiri., Pt. 1. pi. iii. %. 2. 



SALVADORA HEXALEPIS (Cope). 



I860.— .S'ateadora grahami Jan, Icon. G6n. Ophid., Pt. 1, pi. in, fig. 1 (not iS. i/rahamuv Baird and 



Girard). 

 1866.— Phimothyra hexalepis Cope, Proc. Phila. Aead. Nat. Sci., 1866, p. 304. 



Most of the characters separating these twg species are very well 

 shown in the two figures of Jan quoted above. -^ These differences are 

 as follows: 



In S. grahamiw. the frontal is comparatively longer and narrower 

 behind; the parietals are also longer and comparatively narrower; the 

 frontal is less wide and its edges not raised so much from the nasals; 

 the first pair of infralabials is normal; and the second pair of chin 

 shields are in contact or separated by at most one scale. 



In S. hexalepis the frontal is shorter and broader; the parietals are 



^See my notes in N. Am. Fauna, No. 7, 1893, pp. 205-206. 



5 Proc. Cal. Ac. Sci. (2), V, May 28, 1895, pp. 146-147. 



^Bocourt (Miss. Sc. Mex., Ill, Kept., pi. xliii, figs. 2 and 3) figures what he con- 

 siders ;S'. grahamiw and hairdi, but both specimens figured evidently belong to the 

 same species, viz, K grahamiie. 



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