HERPETOLOGY OF JAPAN. 



345 



numerous in the type ; in the latter the subcaudals have a dark gray 

 longitudinal stripe on each side. Doctor Wall in one specimen counts 

 47 subcaudals only, and in one he records 19 scale rows "in mid- 

 body; anteriorly and posteriorly the normal 17 scales were present." 

 This specimen, from Iriomote shima, has 159 ventrals and 60 sub- 

 caudals. 



Habitat. — Thus far only known from the Saki shima group, Riu 

 Kiu Archipelago. Mr. B. Schmacker's Japanese collector obtained 

 a single specimen in Miyakoshima. Two more specimens in Mr. 

 Owston's collection were recorded by Doctor Wall, one of which 

 is now in the United States National Museum. It was collected in 

 Ishigaki shima, June, 1899. Another is now recorded by him from 

 Iriomote shima. 



List of specimens of Liopdlis herminse. 



o Description, p. 344; figs. 296-297. 



6 Type. 



Genus PTYAS" Fitzinger. 



1843. Ptyas Fitzinger, Syst.' Rept., p. 26 (type, Coluber bluvienbachn=C. mu- 



cosus). 

 1854. Coryphodon Dvmeril and Bibron, Erpet. Gen., VII, Pt. 1, p. 180 (part). 



The two species, in the East known as rat-snakes, may be easily 

 distinguished thus: 

 a' Scale rows 17; scale rows a head length anterior to vent 14; ventrals more than 



185 P. viucosus, p. 345. 



a- Scale rows 15; scale rows a head length anterior to vent 11; ventrals less than 



185 P. horros, p. 348. 



PTYAS MUCOSUSb (Linnaeus). 



1758. Coluber mucosus Linn.eus, Syst. Nat., 10 ed., I, p. 226 (type-locality, "in 

 Indiis;" type in Roy. Mus. Stockholm); 12 ed., I, 1766, p. 388.— Ptyas 

 mucosus Cope, Proc. Phila. Acad., 1860, p. 563.— Guenther, Rept. Brit. 

 India, 1864, p. 249 (South-continental Asia; Formosa). — Zamenis mucosus 

 BouLENGER, Cat. Sn. Brit. Mus., 1, 1893, p. 385 (south. Asia; Formosa). — 

 BoETTGER, Kat. Schl. Mus. Senckenberg., 1898, p. 41 (Taiwan fu, For- 

 mosa).— Anderson, Bih. Svensk. Vet. Akad. Handl., XXIV, Pt. 4, no. 6, 

 1899, p. 25 (type).— \V.\LL, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1903, p. 90 

 (Hongkong). 



"From TtrvtU, a kind of snake, so named by the anc'ient Greeks from its hissing or 

 spitting {tc rvoo). 



^Signifying slimy. — The gender of Ptyas is feminine, but as Cope, and all the 

 authors after him, have treated it as masculine, it is here so considered. 



