40. THAMNOPHIS 827 
to 179, males having from 159 to 179, females from 151 
to 175; the average in fifty males is 171, in forty-six 
females, 163.4. The urosteges vary from 70 to 101, males 
having from 78 to 101, females from 70 to 88, the average 
in forty males is 86.4, in thirty females, 78.5. 
Distribution.—This subspecies is a mountain form which 
seems to be confined to the Sierra Nevada and San Ber- 
nardino Mountains. In the Sierra Nevada it has been taken 
on both the east and west slopes. It seems not to occur 
at the lower levels. I have examined specimens from the 
following localities: 
In California, from Butte (Oroville), Yuba (Straw- 
berry Valley), Placer (Soda Springs Station 6,500 feet), 
El Dorado (Fyffe), Tuolumne (Tuolumne Meadows), 
Mariposa (Tamarack Flat, Yosemite Valley, Yosemite 
National Park at 7,700 feet), Fresno (Kings River at 5,000 
feet), Tulare (Jackass Meadow at 7,750 feet, Monache 
Meadow at 8,000 feet), Sierra (Sierraville), El Dorado 
(Fallen Leaf Lake, Tallac, Lake Tahoe), Mono (Farring- 
ton’s), San Bernardino (San Bernardino Mountains at from 
5,000 to 6,700 feet altitude, Seven Oaks, Santa Ana River, 
Fish Creek, Bear Lake, Sugar Loaf Mountains, West Fork 
Deep Creek), counties. 
In Nevada, from Glenbrook, Douglas County. 
Remarks.—Thamnophis ordinoides elegans is a dark, 
distinctly striped form with no, or but little, evident spot- 
ting, and usually without dark pigmentation of the gastros- 
teges. It is closely related to T. 0. vagrans and to T. o. 
couchti, agrees closely with both in most scale characters, 
and, at certain points, intergrades with both. Thus, some 
of the specimens from the Warner Mountains, Modoc 
County, California, approach the elegans type of coloration 
