56 COLUBER CONSTRICTOR. 
Black Snake, Pennant, Arct. Zool. Suppl., p. 92. 
Le Lien, Lacépede, Hist. Nat. des Serp., tom. ii. p. 309. 
Coluber constrictor, Gmelin, Syst. Nat. Lin., tom. i. part ill. p. 1109. 
Coluber constrictor, Latretl/e, Hist. Nat. Rept., tom. iv. p. 178. 
Coluber constrictor, Daudin, Hist. Nat. des Rept., tom. vi. p. 402. 
Coluber constrictor, Shaw, Gen. Zool., vol. ii. part i. p. 464. 
Natrix constrictor, Merrem, Versuch eines Syst. der Amphib., p. 108. 
Coluber constrictor, Fitzinger, Neue Class. der Rept., p. 57. 
Coluber constrictor, Harlan, Med. and Phys. Res., p. 112. 
Black Snake, Vulgo. 
Descrirtion. The head is elongated, oval, with the snout somewhat prolonged 
and rather pointed; the vertical plate is pentagonal, broader and rounded in front, 
narrower and with an acute angle behind. ‘The superior orbital plates are long, 
very large, projecting, and quadrilateral in form, rather larger posteriorly; the 
occipital are also very large, irregularly pentagonal, broadest before, with three 
articulating facets for joining with the vertical, superior, and posterior orbital 
plates. The frontal are pentagonal, with their internal borders broadest, and 
narrower externally, where they pass in behind the nasal plates to the loral, 
which is large and of square form; the anterior frontal are sub-round; the rostral 
is rather elongated and pointed anteriorly, and is very regularly triangular, with 
its basis down and its apex upwards. There are two nasal plates, of which the 
anterior is quadrilateral, and slightly concave behind; the posterior is nearly of 
the same size and form, but more semi-lunated or crescentic on its anterior margin, 
to accommodate the nostril. The anterior orbital plates are two in number, the 
inferior small, the superior very large, making a considerable portion of the front 
of the orbit, and then ascending between the frontal and superior orbital to the 
same horizontal plane as the frontal plate. There are two small posterior orbital 
plates, the upper is irregularly quadrilateral, the inferior is semi-lunated or 
crescentic. There are seven large irregularly quadrilateral labial plates on each 
side, increasing in size from the snout to the angle of the mouth, the third and 
fourth of which make the inferior wall of the orbit of the eye. 
