NOTES ON SOME NORTH AMERICAN SNAKES. 



15 V 

 Leonhari) Stejneger, 



Curator of I he Department of Reptiles and Batrachiatis. 

 Reua hiimilis I^. iV f}. 



The Museum has recently received from Mr. Herbert Brown, Tucson, 

 Arizona (who on several occasions has favored us with valuable mater- 

 ial), four specimens of this worm-snake, making the tirst record of this 

 rare si)ecies from eastern Arizona. They are especially valuable because 

 they show the individual variation both in the position of the eye and 

 the width and shape of tlie median cephalic series of scales. 



Wc have now s[)ecimeus from southern California, from Yuma, from 

 Tucson, and from the Cape region of Lower California. Professor Coi)e 

 has recorded it from }3atopilas, Mexico (Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc, xviii, 

 ]). 202), though no reference to this locality is found in his Catalogue of 

 Batrachians and Reptiles of Central America and Mexico (Bull. U. S. 

 Nat. Mus., No. 32, 1887).* It also occurs at Colima, on the west coast 

 of Mexico, if I am not mistaken in referring Bocourt's Siaf/onodon dugesii 

 (Miss. Sc. :Mex., Kept., livr. 8, 1882, p. 507, pi. xxix, lig. 9, pi. xxx, fig. 

 4), as a s\ nomym to the present species. I can find no character in the 

 description, uoriu the figures, by which to separate it from R. humilis. 



Leptotyphlops dulcis (B. & G.). 



Stenostoma being preoccupied, Leptotyphlops of Fitzinger, the next 

 name in point of date, takes its place, and from this the family will 

 have to be called LeptotijphlopUJa- instead of JStenostomidcv, or Stenostoma- 

 tid(v. GJauconia is two years younger than LeptotyphJops. 



A specimen (No. iSo.U) collected in Cook County, Texas, was recently 

 obtained from Mr. G. II. Kagsdah', which is remarkable for the height 

 of the anterior labial, this shichl having the same size and i)roportions 

 as in the L. alhifrons figured by Bocourt (Miss. Sc. Mex., Rept., livr. 8, 

 1882, pi. XXIX, fig. 10'), though otherwise quite normal. 



In a good series of undoubted L. dulcis 1 find considerable variation 

 in this respect, and the ditlerence is probably of no consequence. This 

 peculiarity, however, led to an examination of the literature and to a 

 comparison of the specimen with Garman's description of Stenostoma 



* Op cit., p. 63, Slenoaloma dulce ia givea as from Batopilas. I am unable to say 



which of the two ideutificatioDu is the correct one, 



501 

 Proceedings of the National Musenm, Vol. XIV — No. 876. 



