410 



BULLETIN 58, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



strongly inclined to doubt either the accuracy of the count, the 

 locality, or the identification, the number being so out of all propor- 

 tion. I may finally remark that in the only Savage Island specimen 

 examined by me (U.S.N.M. No. 28194) the number of light body rings 

 is only 23. Guenther, in the original description of his Savage Island 

 specimens, also gives 22 as the number of the body rings. In our 

 Riu Kiu specimens the number of body rings varies between 35 and 43, 

 and in the type of L. semifasciato the number is apparently about 38. 

 No detailed record of the other specimens is accessible. It is conse- 

 quently at the present moment impossible to decide whether we really 

 have to do with two separable races, one with an average number of 

 205 ventrals and 38 body rings, typical L. semifasciata, from the 

 Riu Kius and the Moluccas, and another form averaging 187 ventrals 

 and 23 body rings, L. semifasciata scMstorliynclius, from the Friendly 

 Islands. 



Figs. R:^l-8:f3.— Laticauda semifasciata. IJ x nat. size. 331, top of head; 332, side of head; 



333, UNDERSIDE OF HEAD. No. 7515, U.S.N.M. 



Description (figs. 331-333).— //a7/"$rrou'7i; U.S.N.M. No. 7336; Yoko 

 shima (Cleopatra Island), Tokara group, Riu Kiu Archipelago; May, 

 1855; Captain Stevens, collector. Rostral broader than high, upper 

 edge broad and truncate, scarcely visible from above; three inter- 

 nasals, one unpaired anterior adjoining the rostral, of which it is in 

 reality only a detached portion, and two posterior normal ones broadly 

 in contact; three prefrontals, a median pentagonal one, posteriorly 

 broadly in contact with frontal, and two lateral ones, broadly in con- 

 tact with frontal and with supraocular; frontal large, much longer 

 than its distance from tip of snout and than the parietals, supraoculars 

 as broad as frontal at the middle ; parietals very short, not longer than 

 broad, much shorter than frontal; nostril large, semilunar, near the 

 middle of the long and narrow undivided nasal; no loreal; one pre- 

 ocular, broadly in contact with nasal; eye rather small, its vertical 

 diameter less than its distance from edge of lip; two postoculars; 



