388 BULLETIN 58, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Description. — Young: U.S.N.M. No. 31817; Amami-o-shima , Riu 

 Kill Archipelago ; Dr. H. M. Smith collection. Rostral broader than 

 high, easily visible from above; internasals broader than long, the 

 suture l^etween them scarcely more than one-half that between the 

 prefrontals which are broadly in contact with supraoculars; frontal 

 longer than its distance from tip of snout and than interparietal suture, 

 much broader than supraoculars; parietals very long, longer than 

 frontal; nostril large, round, at the posterior margin of the anterior 

 nostril, which is larger tli^n the posterior and in contact with second 

 supralabial; no loreal; a single preocular situated above the center of 

 the eye in contact with posterior nasal; eye rather large, the diameter 

 greater than its distance from edge of lip ; two postoculars ; temporals 

 1 + 1 , second one very large ; a large shield bordering the outer poste- 

 rior half of parietal; 7 supralabials, sixth and seventh largest, third 

 rather high, third and fourth entering eye; four lower labials in con- 

 tact with anterior chin-shields which are as long as the posterior, 

 fourth lower labial very large; 13 rows of smooth scales without apical 

 pits; 196 ventrals; anal divided; 31 pairs of subcaudals. Color (in 

 alcohol) pale cream-color (in life said to be red) with a narrow dark- 

 brown median line, one scale wide, from frontal to tip of tail; 16 dark- 

 brown rings around the body and tail, about 3 scales broad on back 

 and two ventrals broad below, the intervals between them about three 

 to four times as wide; top of head dark brown except the median por- 

 tion of each parietal, the brown col ^r on the sides of the head extend- 

 ing some distance past the last supralabial; on the underside a large, 

 roundish blotch of dark brown extending over four ventrals between 

 the rings. 



Dimensions. 



m >n . 



Total length 221 



Snout to vent 200 



Vent to tip of tail 21 



Judging from the adult female in British Aluseum, the full-grown 

 specimens do not differ essentially from the young described above. 



Variation. — The scutellation seems to be very constant, though the 

 ventrals range between 196 and 216 in the nine specimens recorded. 

 The subcaudals on the other hand only vary between 28 and 31 pairs. 



The coloration is also rather constant, except that some specimens, 

 for instance the type and the young specimen in British Museum, col- 

 lected by M. Ferrie, have an additional dark-brown stripe along each 

 side of the body. Its presence is not a sign of youth as shown by the 

 specimen described above. The number of rings around the body 

 varies slightly; thus in the specimen in the Imperial Museum in Ueno 

 Park, Tokyo, there ar(^ 1 2 rings on the body, one at the vent and one on 

 tail. In this specimen the dark bands on the back are plainly ecjged 

 with whitish. 



