192 THE HERPETOLOGY OF CUBA. 
Description: — Adult M. C. Z. 10,822. Cuba: Cienfuegos, Soledad, 1915. 
R. M. Grey. 
Head rather distinct from neck; rostral a little broader than deep; just 
visible from above; frontal a little longer than broad, as long as its distance 
from the rostral; parietals rather small; one pre- and three postoculars; nine 
upper labials, fourth, and fifth entering the eye; scales smooth, in twenty-five 
rows; ventrals 205; anal entire; subcaudals forty-six. 
Colour (in fresh specimen):— Creamish yellow, a double series of large 
black spots, one on each side. The spots sometimes confluent. Throat and 
upper labials yellowish, remainder of head chestnut-brown. 
This very distinct and peculiar snake is excessively rare, one of the rarest 
in Cuba. The only specimen in the M. C. Z. is the ‘one described. It has 
been taken at Borrero on the Guantanamo River by the junior author who 
has specimens from Manzanillo and Cuabitas near Santiago; there are also 
two specimens in the U. 8S. N. M. We know really nothing of its habits, 
beyond the fact that it is perfectly inoffensive, simply rolling up into a ball 
with its head tucked away inside and remaining motionless until disturbed. 
It is like its close relatives, nocturnal. 
Still more recently Mr. W. 8S. Brooks has found it in the Island of Pines 
where it was previously unknown, and the M. C. Z. has also received a 
specimen from Cardenas. 
NATRICIDAE. 
60. TRETANORHINUS VARIABILIS Duméril & Bibron. 
Plate 15, fig. 9. 
Catibo (Western and Central Cuba); Memiso or Quimbélo (Eastern Cuba). 
Diagnosis: — A wholly aquatic snake, grayish olive in colour with many 
much darker cross-bands. The head depressed and the eyes and nostrils point- 
ing upward as an adaptation to the aquatic habitat. 
Description: — Adult M. C. Z. 10,820. Cuba: Pinar del Rio; Guane, 
Rio Cuyaguateje, Spring of 1915. Thomas Barbour and W. 8. Brooks. 
Rostral much broader than high, searcely visible from above; nasals in 
contact behind the rostral; internasals much longer than broad, the internasal 
suture but slightly if any longer than the prefrontal suture; frontal very much 
longer than broad, about as long as prefrontal and internasal sutures together, 
