918 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1898. 



OPHIBOLUS GETULUS SPLENDIDUS Baird and Girard. 



Ophiholns yetulus spleiidldiin Coi'K, Check-list N. Anier. Hatr. Kept., 1875, p. 37. 

 Ophibolus splendidiis Baird and (iiUAUO, Cat. N. Amer. Rept., Pt. 1, Serp., 1853, p. 



83.— Baird, II S. Hex. Bound. Surv., II, 1859, p. 20, pi. xiv. 

 Lampropeltis splendlda Cope, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1860, p. 255. 



Black above; the sides black, with a white spot in each scale. The 

 body crossed by broad bands, consisting of white spots, one in each 

 scale. Dorsal rows twenty-three. 



Similar in general features to 0. g. boylii. Vertical plate similar to 

 that of 0. g. boylii, but broader, and the sides more nearly parallel. 



This species forms a connecting link, as to color, between the blotched 



Fig. 229. 



Ophibolus getdlus splendidus Baird and Gikard. 



= 1. 



Cat. No. 18541, U.S.N.M. 



varieties of 0. g. smji and 0. g. getulus. There is a series of dorsal black 

 blotches from head to tail; in one specimen sixty-three, the forty-ninth 

 opposite the anus; in the other, fifty-two, the forty-first opposite the 

 anus. These are four or five scales long and six or seven wide. The 

 lighter intervals between are constituted by one or two transverse rows 

 of spots, each one on a separate scale. The scales on the sides (from 

 the first to the seventh or eighth rows) are black, each one with an 

 elongated white blotch in the center. These blotches occupy nearly 

 the whole scale on the exterior row, but diminish in amount toward 

 the back. A series of rhomboidal darker spots is seen on each side 

 opposite the light intervals, produced by the less amount of white on 

 the scales at that place, and sometimes extend to the abdomen. The 



