CROCODILIANS, LIZARDS, AND SNAKES. 



899 



body is conipletely encircled by ten or more pairs of jet-black rings, 

 which vary in the degree of their distinctness, and are continued across 

 the belly. The space included in each jiair is three or four scales wide, 

 and is red, each scale having a black tip. The tail is ornamented with 

 two pairs of black rings and a black tip. Anterior to the first pair of 

 rings a black collar four scales wide encircles the neck, scarcely 

 touching the tips of the occipitals; the superciliary frontal, excej^t its 

 anterior border, and the occipitals within a line drawn diagonally from 

 the j>osterior termination of their suture to the lower postocular, are 

 black. A spot below the eye, one on the chin, the end of the muzzle, 

 and the posterior borders of most of the other i)lates of the head are 

 black. The spaces inclosed between the black spaces, which cross the 

 parietal and internasal plates, are yellow. 



This brilliantly colored subspecies varies very much in the develop- 

 ment and relations of the black rings. Several of the forms are beau- 

 tifully figured by both Bocourt and Giinther, as above cited. Boulen- 

 ger gives the following variations as having come under his observation :' 



A. Aunuli separated by broad red interspaces; red scales uot tipped with black. 



B. Aunnli separated by broad red interspaces, the scales of which are tipped with 



black. 



C. Black rings, irregular; belly black. 



D. Black with yellow rings, the red color appearing on each side as rounded spots. 



E. Eed above, each scale tipped with black, the rings reduced to mere traces here 



and there. 



F. Almost uniform black, with very indistinct traces of light annuli. 



The presence of twenty-three rows of scales is not uncommon. 



This subspecies belongs to the Central American subregion of Neo- 

 tropica, and I have not seen it from the plateau, but described it from 

 three specimens from Jalapa in the Tierra Templada, in the museum 

 of the Philadelphia Academy. Duges, however, records it from Gua- 

 najuato, and Boulenger mentions specimens from the City of Mexico 

 and from Amula, Guerrero, so that it must be introduced here. Bou- 

 lenger's A and B are the most common varieties, B more so than A. 



Osceola doliata polyzona Cope. 



' Cat. Snakes Brit. Mas., II, 1894, p. 204. 



