894 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1898. 



OSCEOLA DOLIATA GENTILIS Baird and Girard. 



Ophibolus doliatus gcntilis Cope, Check-list N. Amer. Batr. Kept., 1875, j). 36; 



Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XI, 1888, p. 383. 

 Ophibolus genlllis Baihd and Girard, Cat. N. Amer. Kept., Pt. 1, Serp., 1853, p. 90; 



Marcy's Report Expl. Red River, 1853, p. 229, pi. viii. 



Ground-color dull red, encircled by twenty-five pairs of black rings, 

 the twenty-first opposite the anus, each pair inclosing a third ring of 

 yellowish white. The black rings are conspicuously broader above, the 

 three crossing eight scales on the vertebral row anteriorly, and toward 

 the anus about five. Anteriorly the intervals between successive pairs 

 consist of about five scales, posteriorly only of two or three, thus 

 diminishing considerably. The black rings contract as they descend, 



those of each pair reced- 

 ing slightly from each 

 other, so as to cause the 

 yellow j)ortion to expand 

 about one scale. The 

 black rings are contin- 

 uous on the abdomen, 

 those of contiguous pairs 

 (not of the same pair) 

 sometimes with their in- 

 tervening spaces black. 

 The scales in the white 

 rings are always more or 

 less mottled with black, 

 especially along the sides 

 of the body, this mottling 

 being very rarely observ- 

 able on the red x^ortion. The anterior black ring of the first pair is 

 extended so as to cover the whole head above, except the very tip; 

 the yellow ring behind it involves the extreme tip of the occipitals. 

 The black rings extend on the back so that the contiguous rings of 

 adjacent pairs run into each other. There are twenty-eight pairs of 

 rings, the twenty-fifth opposite the anus. The lateral borders of the 

 saddle spots are fused into a single large median black spot on the 

 abdomen, inclosing the extremities of the gastrosteges within the area 

 of the dorsal saddle. The abdomen opposite the yellow interspaces is 

 not spotted. 



Cat. No. 1853; upper labials, 7; gastrosteges, 205 + 1; urosteges, 32 ? (injured); 

 scales, 21 ; total length, 691 mm ; tail, 61 mm. 



The markings of this subspecies are quite as in the 0. d. fmnulata, 

 except that the black edges of the dorsal spots do not approach each 

 other in that form. Tiie scales are also narrower in the 0. d. gentilis. 

 The form is rare, as only one specimen is known to me. 



Fig. 218. 

 Osceola doliata gentilis Baied and Girard 



Cat. No. 2337, U.S.N.M. 



