408 



BULLETIN 58, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Dhnensions. 



mm. 



Total length 692 



Snout to vent 626 



Vent to tip ( )f tail 66 



Adult specimens of this species are known having reached a length 

 of nearly 1,300 mm. 



Variation. — As in the other species of this genus the scale formula 

 is A^ery constant. A specimen (No. 149) from Queensland, in the 

 Zoological Museum in Christiania, which I was allowed to examine 

 through the kindness of Prof. Robert Collett, is remarkable for lack- 

 ing the azygous shield between the prefrontals, thus resembling L. 

 laticaudata in this res]:)ect, though otherwise a normal L. coluhrina, 

 as shown by its 23 scale rows and yellow supralabials.'^ 



Habitat. — No specimen has been recorded from any definite locality 

 within the limits of this work.^ There are in collections, however, 

 several specimens said to have been taken in the ''China Seas," or 

 "China Sea." As the latter is l)ounded by Formosa in the north, 

 while on the other hand the range of this species mosth^ coincides 

 with that of L. laticaudata, it seems quite probable that L. colubrina 

 may be found in the seas about Formosa and the Riu Kius now that 

 attention has been called to it. 



As stated above, its general distribution is almost identical with 

 that of L. laticaudata inasmuch as it is found from the Bay of Bengal 

 to the western part of the South Pacific at least as far east as the 

 Friendly Islands, extending southward to Australia and New Zealand. 



List of specimens of Lalicmida colubrina. 



a Description, p. 407. 



o Dr. Franz Werner (Mitt. Zool. Samml. Mus. Naturk. Berlin, I, Pt. 4, 1900, p. 104) 

 mentions a similar specimen in the collection of the Vienna university, but he regards 

 it as a hybrid between L. laticaudata and L. colubrina, a view I can not accept, at 

 least for the specimen in the Christiania Museum, which is in every respect a typical 

 L. colubrina, but lacking the unpaired prefrontal. 



'> Doctor Wall enumerates the species as No. 25 of his "List of Japanese and Loo 

 Choo Islands Ophidia," but gives no reference to any record in substantiation. 



