198 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



carry off small or very young chickens. Like most all snakes 

 in this region they are locally known as the "pilot." They may be 

 probably this subspecies. Mr. J. E. Richardson reports it from 

 Moorestown. 



Heterodon platyrinos (Latreille). 



Hog Nose Snake. 



Color when fresh, back above deep brown or umber with an 

 almost imperceptible tinge of dull olivaceous. On each side of 

 back, whole length of body, this color becomes a paler tint with a 

 more olivaceous tinge, and by time middle of side or gastrosteges 

 are reached it has a grayish tinge. Lower surface of body then 

 a dull livid brownish-white. Head dull brown above, finely and 

 inconspicuously specked with darker, and this color extending 

 down to upper edge of upper labials. Lower surface of rostral 

 pale like lower labials, or creamy-white, and upper surface brown- 

 ish of general color of head above. Between eyes anteriorly a 

 narrow deeper brown band, margined in front and behind with 

 dusky. Behind eyes, including parietals and posterior end of 

 front plates, a larger deeper brown area, which gives off a rami- 

 fication behind on each side extending obliquely back, and all this 

 distinctly with dusky. Medianly on occiput though not joined 

 to last mentioned figure a median occiptal bar longitudinally of 

 same colors, and together with afore-mentioned ramifications re- 

 solving into blackish of nape. In sutures at junction of frontal 

 and parietal plates a small rounded pale brown spot of general 

 color of head above, and with somewhat dusky margin. Pos- 

 teriorly from eye below and sloping down to last upper labial, a 

 deep brown bar margined dusky, and of about same width as those 

 above. Down middle of back are 41 more or less regular ochra- 

 ceo'us-brown oblique cross-bars, each one margined narrowly 

 with a slightly paler tint inside and intervening deep brown 

 blotches fusing into a dusky margin, so that they are very sharply 

 defined. On tail they become more or less regularly transverse 

 Along each side of trunk, about three scales above gastrosteges, 

 ochraceous transverse oblique bars of back. 



