HETERODON SIMUS. 9 
or 
cheeks are light grey, with a dusky narrow band descending from the posterior 
and inferior part of the orbit to the angle of the mouth. 
The body is light grey, with a triple series of dusky or black spots, the vertebral 
range largest, generally sub-quadrate, though they vary in form and size, and are 
separated from each other by a transverse light-coloured bar; the lateral series 
are much smaller, generally rounded, and placed at the extremities of the hight- 
coloured bars, so as to alternate with the dorsal series. The throat and abdomen 
in general are dirty white, marked with numerous small black dots, though the 
colour is liable to variations. The tail is fawn colour, with transverse bands a 
shade or two darker. 
Dimensions. Length of head, 9 lines; breadth of head when not flattened, 7 
lines; length of body, 11 inches; length of tail, 1? inches: total length, 134 inches. 
In the individual described there were one hundred and thirty-two abdominal 
plates, and one hundred and thirty-six sub-caudal bifid plates, with a small com- 
pressed and pointed scale at the tip of the tail. 
Grocrarmicat Distriution. The Heterodon simus is found about the sea 
islands of Georgia and South Carolina, and may even be seen as far north as 
southern Virginia; but I have no evidence of its existence beyond lat. 35° in the 
Atlantic states. 
Geverat Remarks. It is most probable that the Coluber simus is the animal 
represented in Catesby’s work as the Hog Nose Snake, though he gave no descrip- 
tion by which it can be distinguished from the Heterodon platirhmos of Beauvais. 
I believe the animals to be identical: first, because the Heterodon simus is common 
in the section of country visited by Catesby, while the Heterodon platirhinos is 
there seldom, if ever, seen; I never met with it in Carolina, save in the interior of 
the state: and secondly, Linneeus drew up his description of the Coluber simus 
from an individual furnished him by Garden, from the immediate neighbourhood of 
Charleston, where this species abounds. 
