336 BULLETIN 58, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Variation. — There is not any great variation in the scutellation. 

 The number of scale rows seems to be constant, 21 '^j and so is the 

 absence of a true subpreocular (the anomah)us scute figured in fig. 285 

 is really only an accidental subocular separated off on one side from 

 the upper posterior corner of the third supralabial). Temporals are 

 also nearly always 1 + 2, thougli Boulenger mentions the occurrence of 

 2 + 2. In one of our specimens the anal is undivided; ventrals vary 

 between 200 and 227, subcaudals between 60 and 76. In two speci- 

 mens there are eight supralabials on one side, in one six. One speci- 

 men, No. 3401 1, is abnormal in lacking the loreal on one side. 



In the young there is some apparent variation in the color due to 

 the fact that the strongly marked first color pattern gradually gives 

 way to the uniform tint of the adults. Apparently some specimens 

 retain the early pattern later than others; thus No. 31852, although 

 18 mm. longer than No. 34013, which has nothing left of the original 

 pattern on the back but numerous irregular and scattered black dots, 

 shows the young pattern in its least modified form. These remarks 

 refer chiefly to the pattern on the back, because that of the head 

 remains strong and plain long after the back has become uniform. 

 Some of the head markings remain longer than others, especially the 

 most characteristic ones, viz, the line crossing the penultimate sup- 

 ralabial, the two lines crossing the lips below the eye and between 

 first and second supralabials, and the black postrostral line. 



Habitat. — Apparently confined to Japan, but not so common as E. 

 quadrivirgata or E. climacophora, and comparatively few specimens 

 with definite localities attached are in the museums. The Leiden 

 Museum specimens collected by von Siebold and Buerger probably 

 came from Kiusiu. The Stockholm Museum has a specimen (No. 536) 

 from Nagasaki, collected by Dr. O. Nordciuist. The Berlin Museum 

 has it from Nagasaki and Tokyo, and British Museum from Yoko- 

 hama, Nikko, and the Haruna Hills. Dr. Wall has recently received 

 a specimen from Tanega shima, south of Kiusiu. Our museum, finally, 

 has it from Tokyo, from Oide, Shinshiu, where Jouy collected it in 

 1882, and from Mount Fuji. Dr. Hugh M. Smith collected it in 

 Shikoku. The only observation as to the altitude attained by this 

 species in the mountains is furnished with a specimen in British 

 Museum, which Lord Dormer collected in the Haruna Hills, 2,500 feet 

 above the sea. 



Giglioli and Salvadori record ** a young specimen as Callopeltis con- 

 spicillatus taken by the "Vettor Pisani" expedition at the Avahuna 

 River, Olga Bay, Russian Coast Province, during September, 1879. 



« A specimen in the Munich Museum said to have been collected at Hankow, China, 

 by Doctor Haberer, is recently reported by Doctor Werner (Abh. Bayer. Akad. Wiss. 

 (Muenchen), II Klasse, XXII, Pt. 2, 1904. p. 357) as having 23 scale rows. Altogether 

 it is a very dubious record (see pp. 326, 331). 



b Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1887, p. 595. 



