VARIATIONS OF GARTER-SNAKES. 



175 



The variations and averages in these characters for nearly all of the 

 specimens examinetl are placed in the following table: 



The variation in color has been briefly treated in the general descrip- 

 tion. There are two color phases, however, that are qnite well 

 marked. 



(1) Stripes usually present, the dorsal generally confined to the 

 median row. Spots of first row either distinct or not differentiated. 

 Belly blackish. This is the type of color described by Baird and 

 Girard and since known as picheringi. It is found in western Wash- 

 ington and to the northward. 



(2) Ground color black. Lateral stripe absent. Interspaces (red) 

 present. Dorsal stripe occupies the median and adjacent half rows. 

 Belly blackish. This is Tropidonotus concinnus Hallowell. So far 

 the only specimens that w^e have seen hail from Portland and Eugene 

 City, Oregon, and it is interesting to note that out of nine specimens 

 from this immediate region (in the U. S. National ]\Iuseum) every one 

 is of this type. Notwithstanding the fact that it has thus apparently 

 a different range from color phase (1), I am in harmony neither with 

 those herpetologists who consider this color phase as an individual 

 variation of parietalis nor with those who would give it subspecific 

 rank. To me it seems that its distinctive traits (width of dorsal stripe, 

 together with a loss of the lateral) are too slight for the latter posi- 

 tion, and that the increased amount of black pigment classes it dis- 

 tinctly with the melanistic form that inhabits western Washington 



