﻿154 COLUBRID.E 



yellowish, with the sutures between the shields black ; 

 the preocular, and sometimes the postoculars, yellow 

 in the young ; a white, yellow, or orange collar on the 

 nape, sometimes uninterrupted, more often divided 

 in the middle, bordered behind by two black sub- 

 triangular or crescentic blotches, which usually meet 

 on the median line; the bright collar often becomes 

 faint, or even entirely disappears, in large females 

 (Plate II., first figure) ; belly usually checkered black 

 and grey or white, more rarely grey with small black 

 spots, or entirely black. Iris dark brown or reddish- 

 brown, with a golden circle round the pupil. This 

 is the form found in England and Central Europe 

 and in some parts of Southern Europe. 



In Jersey, in the Spanish Peninsula, and in 

 Cyprus, the white or yellow collar, which is always 

 present in the very young, soon disappears, and so 

 does usually the black collar, which is either much 

 reduced or entirely absent (var. astreptophorus, 

 Seoane;. Some large specimens from the Spanish 

 Peninsula are uniform ohve, without any markings. 



Another variation (Plate II., third figure), rare in 

 France, but common in Italy, South- Eastern Europe, 

 and Asia Minor (var. persa, Pallas ; bilineatus, Bibr. ; 

 mtiromm, Bonap.) has the collar well marked, though 

 widely interrupted in the middle, and a white, yellow, 

 or orange streak extends along each side of the back, 

 which may bear the usual black markings in addition. 



In some specimens from Austria and Corfu (var. 



