254 



BULLETIN 58, UNITED STATS^S NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Variation. — The present species is not very variable as far as scu- 

 tellation is concerned. Usually the fifth supralabial is the subocnlar; 

 the number of scales on the collar varies between 6 and 10; there are 

 sometimes 8 regular longitudinal series of ventrals; femoral pores 

 vary between 7 and 13. 



The coloration is much more variable, at least in European speci- 

 mens. The underside of the male is in Europe usually more or less 

 orange colored, and in moist localities and higher altitudes melanistic 

 specimens are not uncommon. 



The young, as a rule, are much darker than the adults, nearly black 

 with yellowish dots. 



Hahitat. — This is one of the most widely distributed species of 

 lizards, inasmuch as it occurs in Europe from the Pyrenees and the 

 Alps to the Arctic Ocean in East Finmark, Norway, and from the 

 Atlantic in the west to the Okhotsk Sea and the Sea of Japan in 

 the east. It is recorded from Nikolayevsk on the Amur River, from 

 the valley of the Ussuri, as well as from the island of Sakhalin. The 

 U. S. National Museum possesses a specimen from the latter locality, 

 thanks to the liberality of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. 

 Nikolski reports that he met it not infrequently in the middle part of 

 Sakhalin, that Pol j akof collected two specimens near the mouth of the 

 river Tim, and that Dobrotvorski observed it in the southern part of 

 the island. He also enumerates numerous specimens collected by 

 Maack, von Schrenck, and others, among them a specimen from 

 Decastries Bav collected bv P. Semenow. 



a Description, p. 2.52; flgs. 220-222. 



Suborder SERPENTES. 



I, p. 214. 

 p. 76. 



1758. Serpentes Linn^us, Syst. Nat., 10 ed 



1759. Serpentia Linn^us, Syst. Nat., 11 ed 



1802. Ophidia Macartney, in Boss' Transl 



tab. III. 



1803. Ophidii Daudin, Hist. Nat. Kept., V, tab. p. 8. 

 1820. Idiophidcs FrciNus and Carus, Uebors. Gcs. Thierr. 

 1828. Strepsichrolcs Ritgen, Nova Ada Acad. Leop. Carol 

 1828. Ophes Waoler, Isis, 1828, p. 800. 

 1839. OpMdes Swainson, Nat. Hist. Class. Fi.^li. Ani])li. 



Cab. Encycl,), p. 134. 

 1849. Pleuropoda Mayer, Rheinlaend. iind Westplial. Verhandl 



Ciivicr's Lect. Comp. Anat., I, 



tab. 

 XIV, p. 257. 



Rcpt. . II (Lardncr's 



VI (p. 177). 



