382 bulletin' 58, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Description of type specimen. — Naturh. Mus. Hamburg, No. 1565; 

 Keliing, Formosa; Doctor Warburg, collector. About 11 solid max- 

 illary teeth, subequal, slightly separated from grooved fangs, which 

 are not much enlarged; head very distinct from neck; eye large, 

 equaling its distance from anterior border of nostril, with vertically 

 elliptical pupil; roatral wider than high, barely visible from above; 

 internasals much broader than long, much shorter than prefrontals; 

 frontal as long as broad, as long as its distance from rostral and as 

 the interparietal suture; nasals large, posterior concave; loreal 

 higher than long; 2 preoculars, the upper one reaching the upper 

 surface of the head, but separated widely from frontal; 2 post- 

 oculars; temporals 4 + 5, scale-like, irregular; 9 supralabials, of 

 which the third, fourth, and fifth enter the eye; 5 (on one side 6) 

 lower labials in contact with anterior chin-shields, which are much 

 larger than the posterior pair; body compressed, about twice as 

 high as wide; scales in 21 oblique rows, smooth, with apical pits, 

 the vertebral row scarcely enlarged, the scales pointed behind; veii- 

 trals, 245, flat underneath, obtusely angulate laterally; anal double; 

 subcaudals, 142 pairs. Color brownish gray, with about 57 darker 

 cross-bars composed of black-edged scales from neck to anus, these 

 cross-bars extending on the sides to about 4 scale rows from the 

 ventrals; only faint indications of alternating lateral spots; top of 

 head uniform brown; underside pale with a median area more grayish 

 and laterally bordered by an irregular dusky line following the ventral 

 angle. 



Variation. — The color description of specimen No. 1569, Hamburg 

 Mus., wliich was also collected by Doctor Warburg near South Cape, 

 Formosa, is as follows: Ground color paler and more grayish than 

 the type (No. 1565), with better defined cross bands, which alternate 

 with a row of lateral spots approximately covering the third, fourth, 

 and fifth rows from the ventrals; the ventral median area darker 

 and better defined; head with a median dark line on internasal and 

 prefrontal sutures and middle of frontal, reappearing on the anterior 

 part of upper neck as a median elliptical, brown spot; a smiilar 

 brownish band from posterior half of supraoculars posteriorly to 

 side of neck, where it joins another originating on the upper part of 

 the rostral and running obliquely through nostril and eye over pos- 

 terior supralabials to side of neck; between these lines a pale gray 

 band with whitish edges; supralabials also pale, more or less marked 

 with dusky and with a dusky spot on the suture below the center 

 of the eye. 



The specimen in the Hongkong City Hall Museum examined by 

 Doctor Wall had six temporals on one side and ten labials on one 

 side: fiv lower labials in contact with anterior chin-shields on both 

 sides. 



