204. 
A RARE SpeEcIES OF BascANION (B. ORNATUM). By HENrRy L. BRUNER. 
Masticophis ornatum, a snake of Western Texas, was described by 
Baird and Girard in 1853. Later these authors placed the type under the 
genus Bascanion and reduced it to a variety of B. taeniatum. Cope 
accepted this classification in his check list of the Batrachians and Rep- 
tiles of North America (1875), but in his later work on the snakes of North 
America (Proceedings of the National Museum, Vol. 14, 1891), he restores 
B. ornatum to the dignity of a species. This change, which was made 
in spite of resemblance in the coloration and scale formula of B. taenia- 
tum and B. ornatum, was based on a great difference in the proportions of 
the head and in the breadth of the frontal in the two forms. 
The available material for the study of B. ornatum has consisted, until 
recently, of two specimens belonging to the Smithsonian collections. Both 
of these were taken in West Texas, one near Howard Springs, the other 
between El] Paso and San Antonio. A third specimen, which was recently 
found by the writer in the Franklin Mountains about twelve miles north 
of El Paso, Texas, has suggested the reflections contained in the present 
paper. 
Through the kindness of Dr. Stejneger, who made the comparisons 
for me, I am able to state that the proportions of the head in the new 
specimen agree exactly with those of the specimen in the National 
Museum. Thus additional proof is furnished of the specific value of the 
characters attributed to B. ornatum. Similar evidence on this point is 
also to be obtained from a study of the coloration. 
Cope has divided the genus Bascanion into two series of species, which 
are distinguished by the coloration of the young. In one group the young 
show a tendency to become cross-banded or spotted, as in B. constrictor, 
B. flagelliforme; in the other series the coloration is characterized by 
longitudinal stripes, as in B. laterale, B. taeniatum, B. schotti, B. semi- 
lineatum. In the latter series the stripes persist up to maturity, except in 
B. semilineatum, in which a trace only of stripes remains on the anterior 
half of the body of the adult. The cross-banded forms, on the other hand, 
all lose their bands at maturity, excepting B. flagelliforme, in which in the 
full-grown animal the bands are observable only toward the anterior part 
of the body. 
