78 REPTILES. 
2 
under the eye: eyes very small: labial rather broad; three hinder 
largest: body fusiform; scales elongate, lanceolate, flattened, 
smooth: ventral shields narrow, flat, angularly keeled on each side: 
tail short ; apex acute, elongate, horny. 
1. The Banpep Hrretstes. Hipistes fasciatus. 
Pale slate-coloured; back with a series of truncated blackish 
spots ; lower part of sides and beneath white; subcaudal plates 
dark at each end. 
a. In spirits. Adult? West Indies. From Mr. Luna’s collection. 
*%*% Frontal shields 4; anterior 2, square, like posterior. Seales 
smooth. 
33. ABASTOR. 
Head indistinct, rather depressed ; crown shielded: occipital 
large ; vertebral elongate ; frontal two pairs, four-sided, the anterior 
square smaller; rostral high, triangular, convex; nostrils sublate- 
ral, on a single shield ; loreal none ; oculars small, one anterior and 
two posterior: lips swollen; front labial small; hinder ones very 
large: eyes very small, over suture of third and fourth labial: tem- 
poral shields 3, in a single series: body subcylindrical; scales 
rhombic, smooth, polished: ventral shield rounded: tail short, ta- 
pering. 
Known from Coluber by the nostril in a single shield. 
Helicops sp., Wagler, Syst. Holbrook. Homalopsis sp., Bote. 
Schlegel. 
1. The Strirep Wampum. Abastor erythrogrammus. He- 
licops erythrogrammus, Wagler, Syst. Amph.171. Holbrook, N. 
Amer. Erp. iii. 107, t. 25. Coluber erythrogrammus, Daud. Rept. 
vii. 93, t. 83, f. 2. Merrem, Tent. 117. Homalopsis erythrogram- 
mus, Bote, Isis, 1827, 551. Homalopsis plicatilis, var., Schlegel, 
Phys. Serp. 355. Trop. bipunctatus, part, Schlegel, Phys. Serp. 
320. 
Bluish black, with three longitudinal red lines ; abdomen with 
a row of bluish black spots on each side; tail short, one-eighth the 
total length. 
a. In spirits. N. America. Presented by the Zoological Society. 
