DESCRIPTION OF TWO NEW SPECIES OF SNAKES FROM CALI- 

 FORNIA. 



BY 



Leonhard Stejnegf.r, 



Curator of the Department of Reptiles and Batrachians. 



In 1861 Prof. E. D. Cope established the genus L\ chanura for L. trivir- 

 gata, which at the same time he described as new, from specimens in 

 the Smithsonian Institution and the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences. 

 Of the types in the former, collected by J. Xautus at Cape St. Lucas, 

 Lower California, only one specimen now remains (U. S. Nat. Mus., ISo. 

 15502), and since then only one additional specimen has been received, 

 viz, No. 12G02, which was collected by Mr. L. Beldiug at La Paz. For 

 this genus Prof. Cope, in 1868 (Proc. Ac. Philada., 1868, p. 2), instituted 

 the family Lichanuridw, but afterwards, having been able to study the 

 anatomy of these and allied forms, he referred Lichanura to the Boidce. 

 Its external distinctive characters are given as: Tail prehensile, [though 

 in but a slight degree]; scales smooth; no labial fossa?; muzzle and front 

 scaled ; nasal plates meeting (Bull. 32, U. S. Nat. Mus.). 



To the type species the same author, in 1868 (I. c), added two more 

 species, L. myriolepis and L. roseofusca, the type specimens of which ap- 

 pear to be in his private collection. The distinguishing characters 

 were derived from differences in the number of scale rows, labials, and 

 scales composing the orbital ring, as well as in the coloration. These 

 two species which, like the type, came from Lower California, are entirely 

 overlooked by Bocourt in his great work on the Reptiles of Mexico 

 (Mission Scieutif. au Mexique, Rech. Zool , etc., 1882), while Carman 

 (North Amer. Rept,, Ophid, 1883) simply enumerates them as syn- 

 onyms of the original type species. Besides the short description of L. 

 trivirgata in Jau's Iconogr. gener. Ophid., 2 e livr., 1865 (pp. 69 and 70), 

 reproduced in Bocourt's work already referred to (p. 514), nothing of im- 

 portance seems to have been published in regard to these interesting 

 snakes. It should be remarked, however, that Professor Cope still ad- 

 heres to the distinctness of the species described by him (see Bull. 1, U. 

 S. Nat. Mus., 1875, p. 43, and Bull. 32, 1887, p. 65). 



From the above it wdl be seen that the genue Lichanura, the. only 

 North American genus of the family Boidce, has hitherto not been re- 

 corded from the United States. It was, therefore, very interesting to 

 receive from Miss Rosa Smith a Lichanura, from San Diego, and from 

 Mr. C. R. Orcutt another from the same locality, as well as a third one 

 collected in the Colorado Desert. Upou examination the latter proved 



Proceedings of the National Museum, Vol. XII— No. 766. 



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