NO. 2205. CUBAN AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES— STEJNEOER. 285 



broader, more rhomboidal black interspaces caused by the widening 

 of the white band on the fifth scale row, thus recalling the lateral 

 stripe of the other specimens and actually continuing as such on the 

 second scale row of the tail. 



From the above material one might be tempted to establish three 

 somewhat ill-defined subspecies — namely, the melanistic LeimadopJiis 

 andreae andreae from western Cuba, L. andreae nehulatus from the 

 Isle of Pines, and a third, characterized by numerous definite whitish 

 crossbars, from eastern Cuba, were it not for a specimen (No. 29850) 

 collected by Palmer on January 30, 1902, at Baracoa, near the 

 extreme eastern end of the island. This specimen is a typical L. 

 andreae with no indication of white blotches or cross bands. The 

 only difference is that it has a narrow pale line on the fifth scale row 

 and that the whitish head pattern is almost obhterated. 



Nothing need to ])e said about the specimens with the general 

 locahty "Cuba" except that the specimen (No. 6183) which the 

 museum received in 1863 from the Paris museum under the name of 

 Dromicus fugitivus is much more typical than Cocteau's figure, and 

 exactly like the specimen figured by Jan.' 



A young specimen (No. 27398) collected by Palmer and Riley at 

 El Guamg,, March 26, 1900, is worthy of mention as being a partial 

 albino of the typical form, in which the black is absent, the back 

 being a medium tawny gra}' . 



While I do not attach much importance to the discrepancy in the 

 number of ventrals and subcaudals shown in the table below because 

 of the small number of specimens from eastern Cuba, it may be well 

 to call attention to the fact that both the ventrals and subcaudals 

 are more numerous, on the average, in the six specimens from the 

 eastern part of the island. The average number of ventrals in our 

 10 western specimens is 145. Barbour states that in 7 specimens 

 from the Isle of Pines, the average is 143 and in an equal number of 

 Cuban examples in the Museum of Comparative Zoology it is 144.^ 

 As he apparently had no specimens from eastern Cuba, his figures 

 strongly corroborate those from the United States National Museum 

 specimens. 



1 Icon. Ophid., livr. 23, pi. 5, fig. 2. 2 Ann. Carnegie Mus., vol. 10, 1916, 306. 



