29 LEPTOPHIS SAURITUS. 
rounded, and are broadest before. ‘The frontal plates are broad and pentagonal, 
broadest within, narrow without, where they descend to a small, quadrilateral, 
loral plate; the anterior frontal are irregularly quadrilateral, narrow in front, with 
their posterior and external angles pointed and prolonged. The rostral plate is 
rather small and pentagonal; there are two nasal plates, the anterior of which is 
small and regularly quadrilateral; the posterior is also small, and irregularly 
pentagonal, and hollowed before for the nostril. The anterior orbital plate is 
single, very long, pentagonal, slightly curved behind, and ascending to the plane 
of the forehead; there are three small posterior orbital; and the inferior wall of 
the orbit is completed by the fourth and fifth superior labial, of which plates 
there are seven, all large: the anterior pentagonal; the second quadrilateral; 
the third, fourth and fifth pentagonal; the sixth again quadrilateral; and the 
seventh triangular. 
The nostrils are near the snout, lateral, but open obliquely upwards. The eyes 
are of moderate size; the pupil is dusky, with the iris yellowish-grey and brilliant. 
The neck is contracted, much smaller than the head, and covered with small, 
hexagonal, carinated scales. 
The body is very long, slender, and covered above with scales of similar form 
to those of the neck, but larger, all carinated, notched behind, and with plates 
below. ‘The tail is very long, thin, and terminates in a point. 
Corour. The head above is light olive-brown; the labial plates have a 
greenish-yellow tinge, marked at their place of union with a dusky line; each 
occipital plate is marked with a small yellow spot; this mark is, however, not 
constant: [I have never seen it wanting in the southern animal, but it is not 
always found in the northern, and in some rare examples it is double: the 
large anterior orbital plate is olive in front, but its posterior half is yellow, which 
gives a peculiar physiognomy to the serpent. 
The body above is dusky if seen at a distance, but if examined closely and in a 
