HERPETOLOGY OF ZUNI MOUNTAINS — GEHLBACH 297 



Zuiiis fit tlieii" dcscriptiuns of New Mexico and Arizona material; 

 however, two hatchliugs differ slightly from published accounts of 

 juvenile coloration. They are 35 and 36 mm. snout-vent, with a 

 glossy-black ground color that is equally as intense on the venter 

 as on the dorsum. White spots on the head are confined to the upper 

 labials, outside edges of the parietals, prefrontals, and supranasals, 

 the six to eight scales immediately craniad and caudad of the ear, 

 and the fu'st four infralabials. 



The Great Plains skink apparently reaches the northwestern limit 

 of its New Mexico range in Valencia County and probably does not 

 occm* on the Colorado Plateau further to the north. Locally it 

 inhabits rocky situations in the Plains-Roughlands continuum and 

 especially the cholla-juniper association of the Plains Life Belt. 

 It was collected among rock outcrops in arroyos and along the malpais 

 edge where there was relatively little shrub cover. In contrast to 

 the plains-dwelling iguanid, Holbrookia inaculata, it seems to shun 

 open areas. 



A female, accompanied by three recently hatched young, was 

 discovered July IS, 1956, near the malpais edge on scoriaceous lava. 

 Upon pursuit, she took refuge under a lava chunk, which, when 

 overtm'ned, revealed her in the process of consuming one of the 

 hatchliugs. The other two hatchliugs subsequently were collected 

 and are the ones described above; the adult escaped. 



Locality records: 



VALENCIA CO.: Grants (USNM 44806); 1.5 mi. S. Grants (UMMZ 8G621); 

 11.5 mi. SSE. Grants (CU 5455); 8 mi. SE. Paxton (UMMZ 86623); 4 mi. W. 

 McCartey's (UMMZ 86622). 



Suborder Serpentes 



Thamnophis dorsalis dorsalis Baird and Girard 



I foUow Fitch and Milstead (1961) in replacing Thamnophis 

 cyrtopsis Kennicott with the older Baird and Girard name. This 

 arrangement is not enthely convincing because the black-necked 

 gartersnakes, T. dorsalis, T. eques, and T. marcianus, of the Southwest 

 and Mexico have been confused widely (see Wright and Wright, 

 1957, p. 770); Fitch and Milstead (1961) admit that the original 

 description of T. dorsalis is not sufficiently diagnostic to identify the 

 missing type with certainty. 



The single male of T. d. dorsalis, collected during the present study, 

 was found while I was investigating a breeding aggregation of Scaphiopus 

 hammondi and Bvfo punctaius on the eastern edge of the Grants 

 malpais at 6400 feet (Gehlbach, 1956, p. 369). This locaUty is at 

 least 10 miles from the nearest stream of appreciable size, the Rio 

 San Jose. The specimen has 174 ventral scales, 76 subcaudals, and 

 19-19-17 dorsal scale rows. It is unlike most T. d. dorsalis in that it 



