804 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1898. 



ZAMENIS FLAGELLUM PICEUS Cope. 



Bascanium JIagelliforme piceiim Cope, Yarrow's Rept. U. S. Geog. and Geol. Surv., 

 W. of lOOtli mer., V, 1875, p. 617 (name only) ; Check-list N. Amer. Batr. 

 Rept., 1875, p. 40. 



Baacaniiim piceum Cope, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mu8,, XVI, 1893, p. 625. 



Form elongate, tail three and three-fifth times in the total length. 

 Head elongate, muzzle narrowed forward, moderately protuberant, not 

 flattened, slightly decurved. Eostral plate slightly recurved above; 

 interuasals longer than wide. Frontal half as wide as superciliaries 

 behind. Parietals openly truncate, emarginate at posterior margin. 

 Loreal large, longer than high. Temporals 2-2-2. Superior labials 

 eighth, fourth and fifth bounding orbit, sixth snbtriangular, seventh find 

 eighth larger and nearly equal, and longer than high. Inferior labials 



Fig. 175. 



ZAMENIS FLAGELLUM PICEUS COPE. 



Camp Grant, Arizona. 



Cat. No. 7891, U.S.N.M. 



ten, fifth largest; postgeneials not longer than pregeneials. Scales in 

 19 longitudinal rows, moderately narrowed in the type, but in other 

 specimens in only seventeen rows. Gastrosteges, 195; anal, 1; uros- 

 teges, 108. 



Measurements.— Total length, 1,263 mm.; the tail, 355 mm.; end of 

 muzzle to rictus oris, 34 mm. 



Color above, to, and including the extremities of the gastrosteges, 

 black. Inferior surfaces light yellow, the anterior fifth of the length 

 with brownish blotches, which are posteriorly few and distant, but 

 become larger and more approximated, until the anterior 30-40 gastros- 

 teges are brown or anteriorly black like the superior surfaces. Labial 

 plates with some pale shades on their middles. Preocular with a light 

 middle, postoculars black. Top of head a little paler than back. 



This form might be regarded as a melanistic Z. flagelUformis but for 

 the increased number of scale rows, and longer tail. The fact that the 



