888 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1898. 



Cat. Ko. 9745 presents the anomaly of only one temporal scale of the 

 first row on each side. The head is narrower posteriorly than usual, 

 and the colors are darker. 



The specimens above enumerated are divided between the 0. d. doliata 

 and 0. d. triangula in Yarrow's Check-list. 



OSCEOLA DOLIATA CLERICA Baird and Girard. 



OpMholus doUatus clericus Cope, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XI, 1888, p. 383. 

 Ophibolus clericns Baihd and Gikard, Cat. N. Amer. Rept., Pt. 1, Serpents, p. 88. 

 Coronella triangulum Boulenger, part, Cat, Snakes Brit. Mus., II, 1894, p. 200. 



General characters much as in 0. d. triangula. Top of head and nape 

 with a longitudinal reddish black-edged spot which embraces a Y-shaped 

 yellow spot in its center. A small mediam parietal si)ot. A pale 

 cross band between orbits, and a brown band on the prefrontal plates, 

 which continues as a black band from the eye to the angle of the 

 mouth, crossing the last two superior labial plates. Labials with dusky 

 mutual borders. 



The body is crossed by a series of thirty-eight to forty-eight dorsal 

 blotches, there being nine or ten on the tail. They are much broader 



Fig. 212. 



Osceola doliata clerica Baird and Girard. 



— 1. 



Southern Illinois. 



Museum, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. 



and larger than in 0. eximia, and extend between the outer dorsal 

 rows. These blotches are chocolate, lighter on the sides, and distinctly 

 bordered with black; they are about five or six scales long. The inter- 

 vals between the blotches are mottled ash, or pepper and salt. On 

 each side is a second alternating series of black blotches, much smaller 

 than the dorsal, and extending from the exterior dorsal row on the 

 edge of the abdominal scutellaj. Beneath yellowish white, with dis- 

 tinct quadrate black blotches, opposite to the large dorsal spots, mostly 

 divided on the middle line. 



The body, viewed from above, appears encircled by a series of black 

 rings in pairs, inclosing a third of an ash color. The tints, as usual, are 

 darker on the back. 



Cat. Nos. 



2330 



1407 



In Cat. Xo. 8787 the ventral spots, which are opposite the dorsals, are 

 undivided on the middle line as in the 0. d. coUaris. 



