gn PBS 
33 
TROPIDONOTUS ERYTHROGASTER.—Shaw. 
Plate VII. 
Cuaracters. Head elongated; body long, covered with carinated scales above; 
whole superior surface of animal brick-dust colour, with a tinge of green at the 
sides; abdomen and tail uniform copper colour. Pl. 147. Sc. 60. 
Synonymes. Coluber erythrogaster, Shaw, Gen. Zool., vol. iii. p. 458. 
Copperbellied-snake, Catesby, Carolina, &c., vol. ii. p. 46. 
Copperbelly, Vudlgo. 
Description. The head is large, but elongated and rather pointed at the snout, 
and covered with large plates. The vertical plate is regularly pentagonal, broadest 
in front; the superior orbital are quadrilateral, elongated, narrow. The occipital 
are irregularly pentagonal, broadest anteriorly. ‘The frontal plates are quadri- 
lateral and large; the anterior frontal are of similar shape, but small. ‘The rostral 
is large and semicircular, concave below, convex above. There are two nasal 
plates, quadrilateral, and, nearly of the same size; the anterior is concave poste- 
riorly, and the posterior lunated in front. ‘There is but one anterior orbital plate, 
and two posterior, smaller, and nearly quadrilateral. The inferior wall of the 
orbit is completed by the fourth and fifth labial plates, which are eight in number, 
quadrilateral, and largest posteriorly. 
The nostrils are lateral, and very near the snout. The eyes are large and 
bright; the pupil dark, the iris grey, with a tinge of red. The neck is contracted; 
the body very stout, and covered with strongly carinated scales, notched on their 
Vor. IV.—5 . 
