476 BULLETIN 58, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



has apparently been lost. From Doctor Stimpson's MS. catalogue 

 it is learned that the *Snper," as he calls it, was "killed on one of the 

 Amakirrima Isles (Loo Choo) by Mr. Macomb of the Hancock, April 

 1855," consequently on one of the small islands composing the Ke- 

 rama shima group just west of the south end ot Okinawa shima. 



Hilgendorf's Trimeresurus riukiuanus on the other hand was 

 described from specimens obtained in the Nase district on Amami- 

 o-shima, the principal island of the northern group. The scale formulas 

 of the specimens from both groups agree very w^ell, and a direct com- 

 parison of a few specimens does not reveal any essential difference. 

 The material at hand, viz, one from the northern group and two from 

 the middle group, is not conclusive, however. The former seems to 

 have a somewhat longer snout with more, or smaller, scales between 

 the supraoculars, but until verified in large series from both groups 

 the two names must be regarded as synonymous. The low number of 

 scale-rows assigned to his specimen by Hallo well, viz, 31, is evidently 

 due to the fact that the specimen was mutilated. 



Okada in his List of the Vertebrates of Japan enumerated both T. 

 flcivoviridis and T'. riul'iuanus as separate species, though possibly he 

 included the former wdth T. oJcinavensis which was not then described. 

 Doctor Fritze, however, enumerates all three from Okinawa. Inas- 

 much as he seems actually to have examined specimens of two species 

 it is probable that the one from Tokushimura was really a T. ohina- 

 vensis although enumerated as a T. Jlavoviridis. 



Descnption (fig. 369).— Half grown female; U.S.N.M. No. 31818; 

 Amami-o-shima, Kiu Kiu; Dr. H. M. Smith collection. Rostral 

 almost as high as broad, nearly triangular, the 

 sutures with first supralabials and internasal 

 ^^'■"^^^^XX'. being very short, just visible from above ; a single 

 small scale behind the rostral separating the 



Fig. 369. — Trimeresurus . -i c r i • i i • i t 



FLAvoviRiDis. NAT. SIZE, autenor uostrils ; tour or five shields, mcludmg 

 SIDE OF HEAD. No. 1(1, ^|^g autcrior nostrils, forming the raised canthus 



Sci Coll Tokyo 



rostralis between rostral and supraocular, the 

 shield second from the supraocular being the largest; supraocular 

 long, pointed anteriorly, half as wide as interocular space; upper 

 head scales smooth, small, about 13 in a line between the supra- 

 oculars; nostril round, in the posterior margin of the anterior nasal 

 which is turned over the canthus rostralis to the upper side of the 

 head ; loreal nearly rectangular, slightly longer than high'; two pre- 

 oculars, very elongated, both in contact with loreal, the upper nearly 

 twice as long as the latter, the lower, which forms the upper posterior 

 border of the pit, much narrower than the upper; a long narrow 

 shield bordering the pit below, separated from long subocular by a 

 cou})le of small scales; eye rather large, vertical diameter equaling 

 its distance from edge of lip; a very long narrow crescentic subocular 



