CROCODILIANS, LIZARDS, AND SNAKES. 763 



aiiterioi- to tbe middle of tbe chord connecting the apex of rostral and 

 posterior end of labials and over the middle of the fifth labial. Outline 

 of upi)er jaw convex. Lower labials, eleven. 



Body stout and short. Tail very short, and rapidly tapering, rather 

 thicker than the thinnest part of the body. Dorsal rows twenty-five. 

 Scales all distinctly carinated (including those on the back of the head), 

 excei^t the outer two or three rows, which are either perfectly smooth, 

 or present very obsolete carination. 



Color reddish brown above, with dark blotches. A series of twenty- 

 eight quadrate, dorsal, uniform black blotches from head to anus, each 

 from two to three scales long, and seven to nine wide, separated by 

 regular brownish-yellow intervals of one and one-half to two scales. 

 The blotches anteriorly are nearly square, posteriorly they are trans- 

 versely elongated. Opposite the intervals, and, indeed, bounding them 

 on either side, is a second series of small circular blotches on the fourth 

 to the eighth lateral rows, and separated only by a narrow interval 

 from the corner of the dorsal blotches. Sometimes there are faint 

 traces of small blotches between the upper lateral series. Intervals 

 between the lateral rows of blotches yellowish or reddish brown, darker 

 than those on the back; outer dorsal rows greenish or yellowish white. 

 On the tail there are fifteen black half rings, interrupted on the sub- 

 caudal scutella?, the scales on the tail larger than on the greater part 

 of the body. In young specimens there is distinctly visible a second 

 series of still smaller blotches, below the one just mentioned, there being 

 two of these opposite each one of the former, and placed on the second, 

 third, and fourth exterior rows. Beneath greenish yellow, with obso- 

 lete greenish-brown blotches, indistinctly visible through the epidermis, 

 sometimes more conspicuous in young specimens. 



There is a transverse black or dark bar on the forehead, crossing the 

 posterior half of the postfrontals, involving only the anterior edge of 

 the vertical, and the anterior corners of the superciliaries. Behind 

 this a dark patch, with its anterior margin a little back of the middle 

 of the vertical, and involving the adjoining margin of the supercilia- 

 ries and occipitals, together with the greater portion of the occipitals; 

 sometimes with a light spot in the middle; the light space included 

 between the two ]>atches appears to extend continuously backward to 

 the neck; above, a dark vitta from the back j^art of the orbit to the 

 posterior labial, itself a continuation of the frontal vitta. An elongated 

 narrow vertebral spot behind the junction of the occipitals, and gen- 

 erally isolated from them, on each side of which is a similar patch 

 widening behind. 



This species is subject to great variations of color. Sometimes the 

 sides of the dorsal blotches pass insensibly into the ground color, so as 

 to become transverse bauds. At others they are light internally, with 

 a narrow margin of black. Occasionally there is much black on the 

 abdomen (in young specimens). The ground color varies from gray to 



