80 BULLETIN 17 5, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The coloration is unique for the genus and very distinctive — shiny 

 black above and slate-gray below. The top of the head is generally 

 a dark cinnamon-brown, and the throat is white or gray. One of the 

 smaller adults examined has several large black spots faintly and 

 vaguely outlined in white on the posterior fourth of the dorsum 

 (these are suggestive of the spots typical of the other subspecies of 

 melanoleucus) and has the belly more or less mottled gray and white. 



Variation. — Since the number of specimens available is so small, and 

 all are from Mobile County, Ala., no study of geographic variation 

 can be made in this form. 



Only one of the five specimens examined was a female. Scale 

 counts for another female specimen, which the writer was unable to 

 obtain for examination, have been Hsted by Blanchard (MS.). A 

 comparison of these tw^o specimens with the males examined show the 

 following variations: Dorsal scale formula varying from 27-29-20 to 

 29-31-21 in males, from 27-29-22 to 29-31-21 m females; ventrals 

 214 to 220 (average 217) in males, and 221 to 224 (average 222.5) in 

 females; caudals 61 to 66 (average 62.8) in males, and 58 in females; 

 tail length from 0.138 to 0.160 (average 0.150) of the total length in 

 males, from 0.132 to 0.138 (average 0.135) in females. 



Two additional specimens are described by Blanchard (MS.), of 

 which one is the female mentioned above, an immature specimen from 

 Irvington, Mobile Coimty, Ala. Blanchard gives the following 

 description of this specimen: 



This specimen possesses 28 large dorsal blotches or saddles on the body and 

 7 on the tail, but the anterior 6 or 7 body blotches are too ill-defined to be counted 

 with certainty. Posterior to the middle of the body they are very sharply 

 defined. All the dorsal saddles reach down on the sides to the lowermost row 

 of dorsal scales, except for the most anterior ones, which are too indefinite to 

 delimit. The anterior saddles are emarginate in the median line, but the rest are 

 little or not at all emarginate. There are obscure lateral alternating markings, 

 transversely elongated, along the middle of the body. The lower surfaces are 

 checked with dark quadrate spots with hazy margins. 



The following scale counts are given for this specimen: Scale rows 

 29-31-21; ventrals 221; caudals 58; supralabials 8; infralabials 14/15; 

 preoculars 1; postoculars 4. The tail length forms 0.138 of the total 

 length. 



The other specimen, from a few miles north of Dawes, Mobile 

 County, Ala., is described by Blanchard as follows: 



This was a very large example. It was shiny black on the sides and dull-shiny 

 above; below it was slate color and shiny, except that the first two ventral scales 

 were pure white. On the scales at the side of the head, cream-color was mixed with 

 black. This was true of the scales on the under side of the head, except that the 

 large anterior chin shields were conspicuously darker than the smaller scales 

 surrounding them. On the posterior third of the body numerous blackish-brown 

 to cream-brown colored patches showed on the ventrals, subcaudals, and lateral 

 dorsal scales of the body, faintly outlining on the latter the large dorsal blotches of 



