The King Snakes 



may be readily divided in the construction of a popular key, 

 though the division throws the species out of scientific order in 

 their structural relationship to one another. In the following 

 descriptive list the species are arranged in scientific order, and the 

 sub-species or varieties precede or follow the t)pical form, ac- 

 cording to the trend of their variation. 



THE MILK SNAKE; HOUSE SNAKE; "CHECKERED 



ADDER" 

 Ophiholus doliatus variety triangulus, (Daudin) 



This is the largest of the varieties of 0. doliatus — the South- 

 ern Milk Snake — and the most distinct from it in pattern as a 

 spotted snake. It attains a length of about a yard, is moderately 

 slender, cylindrical in shape, and possesses a small head which 

 is but little distinct from the neck. The scales are perfectly 

 smooth, of a satiny lustre, and in 21 rows. 



Colouration. — Gray above, with a series of large, chestnut- 

 brown or olive-brown saddles on the back, these narrowly bor- 

 dered with black. The blotches extend dcruni the sides to about 

 the fifth row of scales (above the abdominal plates). In alter- 

 nation with the blotches on the back, is a series of smaller blotches 

 on the side. 



The first of the series of central blotches — this covering 

 the head and a portion of the neck, is elongated and encloses a 

 triangular patch of the pale ground-colour, the point directed 

 toward the body; the base of this triangle is niched by the 

 dark colour of the blotch, on many specimens, imparting a forked 

 outline to that part of the triangle directed toward the head. A 

 narrow band extends from behind the eye to the angle of the 

 mouth. 



The abdomen is white, marked boldly and irregularly with 

 square black spots and blotches. 



Colouration of the young. — A newly hatched specimen shows 

 the same pattern as the parent, but the blotches on the back 

 and the sides are distinctly reddish, and bordered with jet-black. 



Half-grown specimens usually possess rich crimson blotches 

 and at this stage resemble in their colours the more Southern 

 Milk Snake — the variety clericus — from which they may be 

 distinguished by the shape of the pale patch of ground-colour 



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