VARIATIONS OF GAKTER-SNAKES. 



155 



two 



?o 



proportionate number of western Washinj^ton specinien.s witli 

 is greater than in the series from 

 elsewhere in the range, while none 

 of the California specimens exhibit 

 more than one except those from 

 Fresno which have two. It should 

 be stated, however, that two out of 

 seventeen " intermediate" specimens 

 from ' ' Oakland ' ' also have two . Just 

 what this means is difficult to deter- 

 mine, but it is interesting to note 

 that the latitudinal variation in the 

 freciuency with which the trait — two 

 preoculars — occurs in ordinoides is 

 exactly the same as in elegans. For 

 some time writers have been led by 

 the occurrence of this trait to adopt 

 one of two courses: (1) To separate 

 the forms with two preoculars and 

 class them with similar specimens of 

 elegans as a distmctiorm. (hiscutata) ; 

 (2) to credit the form with having 

 both a single or a double preocular. 

 The first view is untenable, since the 

 specimens with two preoculars are 

 identical with those with one, from 

 the same region, while, as I have 

 sho^yn, the western specimens differ 

 markedly in scutellation from the 

 eastern examples. As I have in- 

 dicated under the discussion of 

 elegans, reliance can not be placed 

 on this character as a diagnostic 

 one, and I believe that the evidence 

 of the other characters shows con- 

 clusively that in ordinoides, as along 

 the western border of the range of ele- 

 gans and in the intermediate region 

 between the two f(U'ms, the occur- 

 rence of two preoculars is to be con- 

 sidered as an occasional variation. 

 The color is variable, and so much 

 so that it is difficult to determine 

 to what extent the differences are 

 geographic. Nevertheless I believe 

 that the material at hand indicates a generally paler color m the 



