ART. 25 



CHINESE AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES STEJNEGER 



69 



NATRIX AEQUIFASCIATA Barbour 



1908. Natrix aequifasciata Barbour, Bull. 

 Mils. Comp. Z06I., vol. 51, no. 12, April, 

 1908, p. 317 (type-locality, Mt. Wuchi, Cen- 

 tral Hainan ; type. Mus. Coiup. Zool., No. 

 7101 ) . 



Karl P. Schmidt, after examination of 

 the type, has kindly informed me that a 

 specimen from Fukien in the National 

 Museum, which I showed him during his 

 recent visit in Washington, belongs to Bar- 

 bour's species, originally described from 

 the island of Hainan. Doctor Barbour, to 

 whom I then submitted it for direct com- 

 parison with his type material, writes me 

 as follows: 



The Xatrix arrived and we, i. e., Mr. Love- 

 ridge and I. compared it most critically with our 

 two cotypes of N. aequifasciata. They are surely 

 the same. At first sight our specimens looked 

 widely different but they are young and the wide- 

 bowled, black and white crossbars evidently dis- 

 appear with age to be almost obliterated as with 

 your big specimen, while the ventral blotches 

 mark the position of the rings. 



As regards details of head squamation there 

 are no differences worth mentioning. The heads 

 are shorter in our two cotypes. no doubt an age 

 character and the only thing which suggests that 

 possibly a series might prove separable, did we 

 have adults and young from the two localities, is 

 the fact that in both of the Hainan specimens the 

 prefrontals tend to be proportionately a little 

 shorter than in the snake from the mainland. 

 The pre and postocular regions and the temporal 

 regions show some little variability for one of 

 our cotypes has two preoculars on both sides and 

 the other but one, while one has three postoculars 

 on one side and four on the other, the second 

 specimen has four oh both, the fourth a tiny scale 

 so placed that it might be almost called a sub- 

 ocular. Then on one side of one of my cotypes 

 the two anterior temporals are fused into a single 

 large scale which is followed by three temporals. 

 In the other case this same condition of 2+3 

 olitains. but the five scales vary greatly in shape, 

 size and position. 



