452 BULLETIN 58, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



It will be seen that a considerable amount of intergradation occurs. 

 Thus it would be impossible to say to which of the three forms (Tables 

 II, III, or I^') a specimen with 151 ventrals and 45 subcaudals were to 

 be referred, unless it had 8 supralabials, in which case it would 

 probably be correct to refer it to either Tables III or IV, with the 

 chances in favor of Table III, if it had 21 scale rows, and in favor of 

 Table IV if it had 23 rows. Unfortunately, the number of supralabials 

 is not given in detail in the recorded scale formulas, or we might per- 

 haps have been able to make a more definite statement. We only 

 know in a general way that quite a large number of the specimens 

 included in Tables III and IV have 8 supralabials, and I hold it t<) be 

 probable that there are more having 8 supralabials in Table IV than 

 in Table III. 



I now call attention to Table V, containing the records of five 

 specimens in the Zoological Museum of the St. Petersburg Academy of 

 Sciences, which are reported to be from Japan. These, with a number 

 of other snakes, were sent to the academy in 1861 by JV'Ir. Goschke- 

 witsch, who was Russian consul at Hakodate, Japan; hence Strauch 

 concluded that they were from Yezo. Of the five Agkistrodons, he 

 referred No. 2225, with 23 scale rows, to A. intermedius; the other four, 

 with only 21 scale rows, to A. hlomhojfii, the typical Japanese species. 

 Upon this evidence rests the admittance of A. intermedius into the 

 fauna of Japan proper. A glance at Table V shows at once, however, 

 that the five specimens did not come from the island empire at all. 

 They belong most assuredly to Table III, within the limits of which 

 not only the extremes are easily accommodated but with the averages of 

 which their own averages nearly coincide (ventrals, respective!}^, 156.4 

 and 155.8; subcaudals 42 and 41). If we consider, furthermore, that 

 Mr. Goschkewitsch sent two other species, which nobody else has found 

 in Japan (namely, Elaplie dione, see p. 318, and E. sclirenckii, see p. 

 315), but which occur in the Amur Province, I think there can not be 

 a shadow of a doubt that all the specimens sent b}^ him were onh^ 

 shipped from Japan but collected somewhere on the mainland, either 

 in the Coast Province or in Amurland. 



