212 THE HERPETOLOGY OF CUBA. 
pair of dark bands on the humeral region but the body uniform in colouration. 
‘ Two identical specimens of this lizard were found the same day near Hato 
Nuevo but no others were observed. When first caught and brought to Havana 
we concluded that there could be no doubt but that these two individuals were 
really very different from both torret and elegans. Subsequent comparison has 
but strengthened this and these three species seen in life are vastly more differ- 
ent in appearance than a comparison of the descriptions shows. <A fact which 
is very frequently the case in this very confusing genus. 
70. NatTRIX COMPRESSICAUDA (Kennicott). 
Memiso, or ’Miso. 
In March 1918 at the Punta de Judas near the boundary of Camaguey 
and on the north coast of the Province of Santa Clara the first Natrix to have 
been seen in Cuba in many years was found (Barbour). The snake about ten 
inches long was found creeping over a narrow mud flat wet with salt water and 
between tide marks in a region of extensive mangrove swamps. This specimen 
has been compared with the greatest care with the description of Tropidonotus 
cubanus Gundlach (Monatsber. Berl. acad., 1861, p. 1001), and both Dr. 
Stejneger and ourselves have concluded that the example from Punta de Judas 
agrees well with Gundlach’s description. The description, by the way, having 
recited a scale count within the limits of variation known in T’retanorhinus 
variabilis both Dr. Boulenger (Cat. snakes Brit. mus., 1898, 1, p. 282) and 
the senior author has previously been misled into considering cubana a synonym 
of this species. A careful comparison of the specimen from Punta de Judas 
with the large series of N. compressicauda in the M. C. Z. shows the identity 
of the Cuban with Floridian examples, and the Cuban snake (scales 217?) is 
in practically all respects identical with M. C. Z. 7,786 from Key West. 
A dark brown almost black snake with faint rather zigzag cross-band visible 
when the light is favourable. This discovery reéstablishes Natrix as a West 
Indian genus and relegates the species cubana to the synonymy of compres- 
sicauda. The habit of living in mangrove swamps and in salt water makes 
this distribution less remarkable than it would otherwise appear, although it 
is very noteworthy that the species has crossed the swift Gulf Stream in its 
migration and that if it has been long established in Cuba that no characteristic 
variation through isolation has taken place. It must be a recent arrival in 
Cuba. 
