312 BULLETIN 17 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



scales; an enlarged straplike plate on each side of the frontal and in 

 contact with the posterior border of the ocular shield for half its 

 length; eye distinctly visible; 20 scale rows around the body; about 

 285 scales on the middle line of the body underneath from chin to 

 vent and 15 under the tail, which ends in a spine. 



Dimensions: Head and body, 140 mm.; tail, 5 mm.; diameter of 

 body, 4 mm. 



Color (in alcohol): Light brown above; edges of scales darker than 

 their centers; the head plates in front of the eye buff, without mark- 

 ings, the remainder of the head scales like those of the body; throat 

 buff; the rest of the ventral surface grayish white, merging evenly 

 into the darker dorsal color. 



Variations. — To judge by the drawing of the type specimen in Dr. 

 Thomas Barbour's original description, the type has a wider rostral 

 than do those of the National Museum collection. The second 

 supralabial seems a little lower in the figure of the type than in any of 



a ■ c 



Figure 89.— Typhlops pusillus: a, Top of head; b, side of head; c, chin. U.S.N.M. No. 9803, 

 from "Santo Domingo." Six times natural size. 



the other specimens and of a somewhat different shape, but this slight 

 difference is probably due to the angle at which the specimen was 

 held in making the drawing. The straplike plates behind the ocular 

 do not seem to be at all evident in the drawing of the type specimen. 

 The midventral scale count of the type of pusillus was wrongly given 

 as 370. It is really about 275, Dr. Barbour writes me. The variation 

 in the number of ventral plates in the National Museum series is 

 between 272 and 304; the caudals number between 10 and 19. 



Remarks. — Nothing is known regarding the habits of this tiny snake, 

 but its mode of living cannot be far different from that of the better 

 known Typhlops lumbricalis. Other snakes must occasionally dine 

 upon them, for No. 64271 was taken from the stomach of a Leima- 

 dophis parvijrons protenus taken in the Mao-Yaqui Valley. 



Specimens examined. — As listed in table 58. 



