''"1919^] BARBOUR — HERPETOLOGICAL NOTES 9 



The Northern race may stand as : 



Diadophis punctatus edwardsii (Merrem) 



Coluber edwardsii Merrem, Tentamen Syst. Amph., 1820, p. 136 (based 

 on Edwards' Gleanings Nat. Hist., Ill, 1764, p. 290, pi. 349, — as also is 

 Coluber torquatus Shaw, Zool. Vol. Ill, 1802, p. 553, which is preoccupied 

 by Coluber torquatus Lac^pede = Natrix natrix (Linn6)). Type locahty, 

 Pennsylvania; William Bartram, collector. 



The Northern ring-neck snake differs from the Southern in having a wider, 

 almost white, ring about the neck, scales more slaty gray and less punctate, 

 belly paler, uniform cream-color from throat to tail, and in having a higher 

 ventral and subcaudal scale count. 



Thus eleven examples from Massachusetts, in the Museum of Compara- 

 tive Zoology, have for the siuns of ventrals and subcaudals an average of 

 212.2 (eleven from Florida, 184.4) ; also six from New York have an average 

 of 217.8. The range of ventrals in fifteen New England specimens is 153 to 

 164; in nine from New York, 150 to 165; specimens from scattered localities 

 in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Kentucky, 

 Ohio, and Canada, fall within these limits. In all of the many Northern 

 examples I have seen, the collar has been entire and the belly has been im- 

 maculate, except for two specimens which have scattered median dots. These 

 were M. C. Z., no. 5610, from Springfield, Mass., and M. C. Z., no. 2471, 

 from Fallsburg, SuUivan Co., New York, while Dr. Stejneger's notes show 

 a few spots occurring on the following specimens: U. S. N. M., no. 13,296, A 

 and C, from Montgomery Co., Maryland; U. S. N. M., no. 25,269, from 

 Woodside, Maryland; U. S. N. M., no. 1969, from Tyree Springs, Ten- 

 nessee; U. S. N. M., no. 22,813, from Dublin, New Hampshire.^ 



The race is distributed from Tennessee, Kentucky and 

 Virginia, northward to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, south- 

 ern Canada and the Maritime Provinces. In the mountains it 

 probably extends southward to northwestern Georgia. Mr. 

 Dunn (Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 37, 1917, pp. 630-631) 

 records that nine out of fifteen examples taken in the high 



' Since this was written two examples from New Jersey have been kindly loaned me 

 for examination by the American Museum of Natural History, both of which have a dis- 

 tinct median series of dark dots on the belly. These were from Newfoundland, Suffolk 

 County; their counts total 215 and 217, — typically Northern. 



I am indebted to Mr. K. P. Schmidt, of the Museum in New York, and to Dr. A. G. 

 Ruthven, of Ann Arbor, for the recent loan of helpful material. 



